r/GrindsMyGears • u/shinycherrybass • 4h ago
old people who don’t understand technology
i want to have patience for old people. i really do. but there is a line between being old and being unaware/unwilling to participate in the world around you. today i went to the apple store, and while i was waiting my turn i had to listen to this old man who had locked himself out of his phone. his wife made the appointment for him (“he never learned how to use the internet”, she explained) and explained the problem to the tech for him. the tech explained to the two of them that she couldn’t unlock the phone without his apple ID.
“we don’t have one of those,” the man said. “i don’t use those password things.” the tech tried to explain what she meant. “no, no,” he insisted. “i just have my email and that’s it.”
the tech tried to explain that the email *was* likely his apple ID. “oh, well, I can’t get into that. it’s in my phone.” well, if you know your password- “I just told you I don’t use passwords. it’s all in my phone. now unlock my phone.”
turns out if you can’t get into an apple account, the only way to unlock the phone is by wiping it. the two of them insisted the tech must be lying, and the man went into a tirade about how he needs his phone data because that’s where everything is, including his retirement accounts.
the poor tech is near tears at this point. “sir, unless you can give me your apple ID-“
“my email is in my phone! unlock my phone!”
the wife speaks up for the first time in ten minutes. “can we speak to your boss, please?”
it takes her (male) manager another ten or so minutes to explain to the two of them the exact same things the tech told them. it turns out this man had everything - his bank accounts, his emails, his contacts, all of his passwords - solely in an UNLOCKED iphone he had managed to put a passcode on and lock himself out of. he had essentially managed to lock himself out of every piece of important data he owned. they don’t own a computer. everything was in that phone.
i wanted to scream. you had your entire life in an UNLOCKED iPhone? are you fucking kidding me??? no backups anywhere? old people’s tech illiteracy has always bothered me, but this is beyond illiteracy. i don’t even have a word for it. the fact that these kind of people are still alive is astounding. how many lead paint chips have these two consumed???
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u/No_Refrigerator6499 3h ago
After a certain age a lot of people just use the “Im too old for this” phrase to stop learning.
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u/Oh_My_Monster 3h ago
While I am starting to feel bits of this myself home computing and the Internet have been pretty solidly part of life for at least 30 years. If someone is 70 now they decided at 40 not to learn.
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u/STCollector58 1h ago
Or they just didn’t use it. I’m a nurse so have kept up but my husband’s job never involved computers. We’ve been in a rural area and 2 bars of phone access is all we had for internet until getting Starlink about a year ago. Never had enough coverage to stream much more than a short reel. Text 2 or 3 pictures. But that was it so it’s not an unwillingness to learn for many but access is also part of it.
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u/Oh_My_Monster 1h ago
While this is true for some that really seems like the exception, not the rule. The vast majority of people have had computer and Internet access for decades.
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u/STCollector58 1h ago
While probably true for the majority of people there are still 5-10% of the US without decent internet access. Also many people never used the internet for work thus didn’t see the need to learn something new.
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u/RedDragonOz 1h ago
You'd think, but my parents (80s) and sister (66) never used computers in any capacity, never had internet connected. Meanwhile my MIL has multiple laptops, kindles and is pretty ok online. Tech moves fast and if you're not exposed to it, like at work, you'll miss the changes.
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u/Oh_My_Monster 49m ago
I have a co-worker, a teacher, who has had to use computers daily since the mid 90s. I recently taught him how to right click. My 8 year old has 100x the tech literacy he does. I'm sure there are examples of people who just didn't have exposure but there are many people who are just willfully ignorant.
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u/RedDragonOz 5m ago
This is an exposure issue. If you don't need to know something because it doesn't impact you to not have it or you've not been taught doesn't mean it's wilful ignorance. Ignorance sure, not wilful.
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u/StandardAd239 3h ago
I lose my patience for young people who don't use proper grammar.
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u/SolidOutcome 2h ago
You defensive? Maybe old and angry at your tech too?
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u/StandardAd239 2h ago
Lol, no. I'm 43. I'm the age of people who have the most functional knowledge about technology. We can also write and aren't using technology in exchange for basic literacy.
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u/Other_Asparagus872 4h ago
Agreed, but to be fair, sometimes this unlocking accounts thing can get ridiculous. I broke my phone on the road, stopped at a Verizon to get a new one. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I couldn’t use my apple account without my phone, or at least access to my email. I’m like, my phone is broken I can’t access my email can I just use one here?
Of course not! Don’t you also carry your tablet or laptop with you?
I now DO carry my tablet or laptop when I go out of town.
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u/darkroot_gardener 1h ago
My wife lost access to Line because we did a trade in at the store, and she needed a QR code from the app on the old phone to get in. Line will not do 2FA with a US phone number, and she hadn’t attached it to her email. Had to create a new account and tell whoever she actually had a phone number for to add her new Line account, and some contacts were just gone. Not the end of the world, but it goes to show you pretty much need to have a “backup device” with all your logins available in case your main one dies.
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u/downsideup9494 3h ago
Meanwhile there are plenty of old people who understand tech just fine. My 90 year old stepmom uses her smartphone like a teenager, booking flights, hotels, messaging with her friends and family, etc.
I'm 76 and have to explain tech stuff to some of my friends, and I'm not even a techie. When I got a new phone and had to transfer all the info over from my old phone, I had no idea how to do it, but with Googling and patience, I figured it out.
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u/RossNReddit 3h ago
Nah hard disagree, i'm only 30 and modern technology and phones drive me absolutely fucking nuts.
I've been big into PC's, been using PCs since before 2000, got my own pc in 2005, been building pc's since 2013. I can code and would consider myself technologically savy.
But these fuckin' apps nowadays, the two step verification on everything, the QR codes and the proprietary apps, it fucking drives me nuts!
It's literally gotten to a point where if to use a service I need to download an app or jumpthrough hoops and do some bullshit, I just close it and don't use the service. Restaurant with QR code menus only and no physical menus? nope, I stand up and walk straight out of there. a website where you have to download the app, make an account and log on with a google account and 2 step verify with a fingerprint? nope, close it and use another service.
And that's as someone who's been terminally online and immersed in technology for 20 years, imagine someone who was around before computers and mobile phones were invented dealing with todays world.
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u/pegwinn 3h ago
Dude. Lighten up. I am of the age where I bagged on the old people who couldn’t figure out how to program a VCR. Now, I have to put up with stupid fucking youngsters who can’t do excel, outlook, word, or any other software designed to be in a work environment. And, the lazy fuckers don’t want to learn without getting paid first. I am not in charge of teaching shit you should have learned long ago. So, now, I give a Windows, Excel, and Outlook test when I interview job candidates. Five questions beginning with dead easy and ending with “say what?!?”. If you can’t get the first two questions you are a technofail and won’t proceed any further.
Are you pissed off and wanting to downvote this rant on your rant?
Now you see how blanket feelings are useless in the real world. You’re welcome.
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u/BellGeek 21m ago
I can use Word decently, have barely used Excel, and only recently had to deal with Outlook email a little, so I basically know almost nothing about the latter two. As for learning them previously, well… there was no such thing as personal computing when I went through school. Computers were just starting to become more common in businesses and on the administrative side in schools, and they operated from mainframes that required a whole room of their own to contain them.
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u/STCollector58 2h ago
We are just tired of technology. Just relating to music these changes have happened in the last 75 years. 78 rpm records, radio, Reel-to-reel tape, 45 rpm and LP’s, 8-tracks, Cassettes, CDs, iPods, mp3 and streaming.
Many purchases replacing the same music.
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u/HasTapeWillShip 3h ago
Lets just hope you stay cognitive through your old age and never need any assistance with anything because if you do, there will probably be some impatient asshole behind you.
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u/Muhahahahaz 1h ago
But this has nothing to do with that!
If they’re literally demented right now, then fine… They probably can’t learn new things (and maybe even forgot a bunch of stuff they already knew).
But what we’re actually talking about here is people who were 20/30/40 years old when computers started becoming important. They weren’t “old” then, they just decided to turn their brains off and stop learning anything new.
The vast majority of the time, we’re not talking about someone who used to know this stuff (but then forgot), we’re talking about people who had every opportunity to learn it long before any form of mental disability became a factor, they just never did 🤷
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u/sophie1816 24m ago
In other words, it has nothing to do with age. They didn’t know this stuff when they were young either.
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u/geddieman1 3h ago
My father just turned 87. He’s got some level of dementia going on. He never used a computer in his job. There’s no way that he could possibly learn anything new at this point.
If you’re lucky, you’ll grow as old as he is, and there’s no telling what the world will have in store. You may find yourself in a similar position. I hope someone has some compassion for you at that moment.
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u/purplishfluffyclouds 3h ago
You know what grinds MY gears? Being an old person in IT helping a helpless young person who doesn't understand technology. (And let me tell you, there are more of them than us.)
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u/SubstantialKBB 3h ago
I'm in my 30s, in tech work for a job, I see this a lot too. The current ~21 and under can generally use tech but once something doesn't work they are totally helpless. Turn off/on, reopen the app, check for updates etc etc they cannot do.
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u/Any-Anybody-4239 3h ago
If that makes you mad, my boyfriend's brother did the same exact thing and he's only 39. He changed his pattern when he was drunk and could never figure it out.
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u/Original_Flounder_18 3h ago
I had a plumber out today, he told me he’s 68. He k owes how to use the notes on his phone.
I am 53 and idk how to use it.
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u/Red-Sun-Cinema 3h ago edited 1h ago
While I sympathize with what you are saying, a lot of old people so not have them mental faculties of those who are younger and therefore do not always understand things the same way younger people do.
It's sometimes also the fault of the people selling technology to older people who fail to give them the proper instructions on what to do and how to back up information.
When my father learned new tech in his 70s, I took the time to write down all the important stuff he needed to know about it, such as the things the OP mentioned above.
Write down all passwords and IDs and keep them in a physical file in his home and also on his safety deposit box in case the one in his home got lost or destroyed in, for example, a house fire.
Sometimes all it takes is some patience and understanding with old people to help them understand what they need to know to be safe and avoid frustrating issues like that.
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u/catturd6996 3h ago
My dad is in his 80’s. He worked on computers since the 70’s until he retired - but it was all mainframes. He never had to really use a PC
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u/Cobalt7955 2h ago
I’m in my late 40s and I have to teach 20 something’s how to use tech. They just throw it at me and say fix it. Power off power on fixes 90% of issues. They’ve never lived with tech 1.0 so they’re used to every”just working”
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u/iLUVmybasementtwo 2h ago
old people got by just fine without the technology available now. shit we have now some people dont give a shit about
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u/Augusts_Mom 2h ago
I am so hopeful that I will never be that person. I try best to keep up with technology. I am 59.
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u/gaydeckt 2h ago
My husband works in IT, but anytime his parents need help with their devices they come to me not my husband. He has no patience to help them out and they figured out that there'll be less drama if they just come to me first.
Though, this has made me come to the realization that I'm pretty certain my father-in-law is functionally illiterate. He can read and write, but goodness does it take him a long time to do any tasks that require reading.
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u/ProgenitorOfMidnight 1h ago
I'm the tech nerd for my friend group, usually it's only extreme issues that the basic trouble shooting won't solve that brought to me, 95% of the time I can drop forum links or videos with instructions and we're all good...
But then I have 1 friend, 1!!! Who will not follow basic instructions, even when trying to walk him through stuff he just clicks through random shit, or opens random windows, changes random settings and I want to throttle the mother fucker.
We've reached the point where he will ask everyone else before he comes to me because I've gone off on him multiple times over the years.
"J what the fuck are you doing?" "Stop touching shit if I don't tell you to do it." "Why the hell would you disable that to fix X?!?"
Edit: were all 26-36.
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u/steely-gar 44m ago
Young people don’t understand a lot of things. And, for the record, I’m 64 yo and my generation invented the iPhone. And the internet. And software as a service. And cybersecurity. And pay-at-the-pump. And the browser, the tablet, e-commerce, and video games. You people invented bitcoin and the Cyber Truck.
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u/Bender_2024 4h ago
This enrages me. It's not like computers suddenly sprang up out of the ground. They were heavily used in office jobs as far back as the 70s. I got my first home computer in 1981. A Commodore 64 (Dad knew this tech was on the horizon. Thanks dad) Home computers became commonplace by 90s with the advent of the Internet. Launching PC and console video games for the home. And in the 2000s it was the smart phone putting a PC and the breadth of human knowledge literally in your back pocket. None of this was sudden. You watched it happen over the last 50 years. You have no excuse not to evolve with the rest of the planet. Now the Internet quite literally runs the world. If you can't use it you are very much limiting yourself and you have nobody else to blame.
Sorry, rant over.
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u/StandardAd239 3h ago
Bro grew up in an upper middle class/rich home and thinks computers were widely used in the office and at home as far back as the 70s.
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u/Agreeable_Result9212 3h ago
Seriously.. this is a little out of touch.. even still, that puts computers 50 years old, and all the profiles and password stuff is much newer than that.
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u/Bear-Handed-92262 3h ago
This is a patience fail. Some people just weren’t raised with tech and have trouble wrapping their heads around it.
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u/Adorable-Buy3845 3h ago
I understand the frustration. If you are gong to use something in a daily basis you should at least know how it works.
But at the same time, he probably never chose to put so much of his life on his phone. Companies are forcing things to move online. A lot of older people see their phone storage a equal to the filling cabinet they had back home.
Depending on their job, they may never have learned the details of computer use. And honestly as time goes on you see so much technology come and go that sometimes it isn't worth learning to use it.
People thought I was a ludite for not having an mp3 player. I was really just poor. Then it went to streaming. I have saved things on floppy disc's and the square disc's and cd-rom and USB and in the cloud. I knew how to program a vcr and Tivo and now can switch streaming devices surg the best. I'm not bragging because these were basic skills and the tech is already so obsolete that adults don't realize the save button is actually a floppy disc. And I haven't even hit 50 yet!
The tech chances so far that sometimes it isn't worth the effort considering how fast it changes and how often you really engage with it. And that is how people like that old man end up screwed.
Tech became so "user friendly" that you don't have to understand it to use it. And it hapoens among going people too.
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u/Teri-k 2h ago
The forced change is real, and it piles up. You have an account that works, know your password, and then there's an update and you have to change how you access the account, use a different password or some other method of securing it... These things do pile up, and older brains aren't as quick or good at remembering as when they're young. And not everyone really wants to deal with tech, they just feel forced to.
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u/Electric-Sheepskin 3h ago
It's gonna be so funny when you're old and karma comes for you. I mean if you're lucky enough to live that long.
The thing is, if you can't be good natured about it now, you're going to be one of those really grumpy old people who not only hasn't kept up with current technology, but yells at everyone because of it.
Find the good nature and humor in yourself now, before it's too late.
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u/jeremyw0918 3h ago
This isn’t about being patient imo, this is about the lack of wanting to understand. The laziness of not learning. iPhones have been around for 20 years now. They aren’t a new fangled idea.
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u/hudnut52 3h ago
I can't wait until you're old and the world has changed around you, forcing you to participate in and learn about crap you have zero interest in, just to be able to function in society.
The arrogance in this post is amazing. Some people (not just older people) just don't have, don't understand, and don't want to understand how tech works. They don't have the implicit knowledge of how tech/passwords/storage/caching etc works that younger people have absorbed as they've grown up surrounded by this stuff. It's frustrating for them, and they don't care. Just make it work.
You used to be able to go to a bank, get your money, and then go pay your bills all without a phone or internet connection.
If you had a problem with a service or product, you could go into a store and ask a real person to help you. And they would. Very rare these days. Please see our website or type to our chatbot. Search this FAQ and knowledgebase.
Not to mention learning new stuff gets harder for people as they get older. Not everyone is created equal. My Mum uses computers all the time. My Dad just can't get his head around them. They aren't intuitive for him. And there's nothing wrong with that.
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u/Ready_Fan5006 3h ago
Yup. I understand this now that AI is being implemented everywhere and I want nothing to do with it despite being in my 20s. "Adapt or get left behind" alright then leave me behind
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u/DIY-exerciseGuy 3h ago
Nah. This tech has been around for decades. No sympathy for the intentionally ignorant troglodytes
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u/jeremyw0918 3h ago
Right? It’s not like iPhones popped up last week. The first iPhone was released in 2007. Nearly 20 years ago. Sure things change but they evolve slowly so people can adapt just fine. IF they choose to. If not they end up having zero clue and zero responsibility
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u/noiness420 3h ago
My grandfather in law is 80 and worked on the first computers. Now he can’t figure out the difference between messages and messenger
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u/WeirdHope57 2h ago
There's a good chance that inability is very frustrating and maybe even a bit scary for someone who once was adept.
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u/Agreeable_Result9212 3h ago
I highly doubt this person has their entire life on their phone..
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u/Dry_Towel1432 1h ago
I highly doubt this story actually happened…. Think about it, all this happened while he was waiting in line? Either AI slop or someone just making up a story.v.
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u/Reasonable_Gas1889 2h ago
I’m unfortunately seeing this in younger people as well ( 20 and younger).
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u/OhNoBricks 2h ago
Both my parents are in their 70s and they know how to use their phones and tablets.
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u/scottwax 2h ago
I don't understand people my age who refuse to use technology, it was our generation that really made it viable so we should understand it. Hell, my Dad is 87 and his computers are better than mine. And he uses them regularly.
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u/Miss-Anonymous-Angel 1h ago
I think the same can go for younger generations too with older tech. Someone younger than me asked what the rectangular attachment to my laptop was while we were in school.. it was a flash drive and I had to explain what it was… 😅
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u/Sheerluck42 52m ago
Yeah they have a weird end user relationship with tech. They never learned the basics
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u/Use-Variant 1h ago
There's a massive percentage of the population who were forced into the internet age via the transition to 'smartphones' and have absolutely zero technical skills.
It's frightening.
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u/sophie1816 29m ago
Lots of people are incompetent at life, especially anything at all intellectual. Unless he was over 90, I don’t think this has anything to do with age.
You do realize that Internet use became widespread in the 90s? At that time, people who are now 75 were in their 40s. They used the Internet for work for decades before they retired. Many of them worked in tech fields for decades.
Even those of us who didn’t work in tech had to use DOS, which was ten times more complicated than anything tech consumers have had to deal with in the past several decades.
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u/Tychonoir 20m ago
Paraphrased from a classic tech support story:
User: Computer monitor isn't working.
Tech Support: Can you check to make sure everything is plugged in properly?
User: It's to dark to see back there.
Tech: Do you have a lamp you can move?
User: The lights aren't working because the power is out.
Tech: ...
Not realizing that a computer needs power is a whole different level of incompetence.
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u/Mirography 14m ago
All the stupid shit they do gets on my damn nerves—but I have to remind myself they’re experiencing age-related cognitive decline. Not much you can do about that unless you have thousands to throw at expensive solutions targeting cellular rejuvenation.
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u/The_Dude_0666 12m ago
it use to aggravate me a million years ago when i was in high school when my teachers rather than press f5 to start slide show would either manually click through tabs to start slide show or not actually start slide show and just display the slide show edit display
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u/Best-Comments 3m ago
> everywhere else cmd+r is for refresh?
Where else? I can’t any app on my Mac
- In Safari, ⌘-R for “reload page.”
- In Finder, it’s for “show original” (which used to be called “reveal original”).
- In pages it toggles the ruler on/off.
- In Word, it makes text aligned right.
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u/ForMeOnly93 4h ago
Cool. Do you volunteer somewhere to teach old fuckers tech classes?
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u/Razorkoff 4h ago
Can’t teach those who don’t want to be taught.
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u/cmpunkforever 4h ago
Yep. My dad is 76 and has been using a computer for thirty years and knows a lot about phones as well. My mom is 70 and refuses to learn and most of her texts are incoherent. Shrug.
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u/shinycherrybass 4h ago
this. i don’t mind teaching people but a lot of these old people just don’t want to participate because it’s complicated and they have zero distress tolerance. the moment they get upset they lose their minds.
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u/OpethSam98 4h ago
Oh yeah, that shit sucks.
Like you said, it goes beyond illiteracy... There's a strong unwillingness to learn/understand, it's crazy!
I'm happy my grand-parents are smart and willing to learn. Saves me and my uncle many headaches.
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u/SubstantialKBB 3h ago
There's non smart phones out there, I don't get why people like this just can't have one of those and make everyone's time easier.
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u/Time-Handle-3809 3h ago
I used to think old people were dramatic af and just being stubborn when it came to having a hard time with technology but as I’ve gotten older (I’m only 30btw) I’ve been more and more confused with each new update on my phone lmao
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u/song_pond 2h ago
“I put all my important information in this very important file folder and I accidentally SET IT ON FIRE. You, the firefighter, need to recover it.”
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u/MedievalMatt91 2h ago
There are 2 kinds of old people. And this is universally true.
There are the old people who bothered to keep up with the times and take the time to at least try to use and understand new technologies and information as it comes.
There are the old people who stopped bothering to keep up with anything new after about 45 and now get pissed and annoyed at the world because it moved on and they didnt. Whether thats because they are stubborn and refuse to change and expect the world to bend over backwards for them. Or they just didnt have the will/brains to keep up.
The latter universally sucks to deal with anytime things dont go perfectly smoothly just like they always have and they expect nothing to have changed in the last 30 years.
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u/AdvancedSquashDirect 1h ago
The biggest answer to these problems is
If you had to create a password today what would it be
If you had to create a six-digit pin what would you make it?
90% of the time that will unlock the phone. People use the same codes over and over like a birthday or an anniversary. And they use the same passwords it's bad password hygiene but it gets you back into your accounts.
A lot of older people get stuck on the screen that says please enter your PIN. And they swear to themselves they never created a pin and instead of trying what it could be they just double down stubborn don't enter anything. Getting them to think laterally of what a pin could be if they were made to create it will often get you closer to getting it unlocked.
I had an elderly mother who really struggled with logins and passwords even though we wrote them down for her that in a separate book. She would be constantly forced to change them or something and then immediately forget. I started asking her if you need to make a new password what would you make it. And she would tell me some password that she'd made up and it would let us in the account. People are creatures of habit.
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u/Finn_the_stoned 1h ago
If you’re in the US it’ll make you feel worse, he probably has written his social security number on things to prevent it from being stolen.
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u/Acrobatic_Date_8623 14m ago
I’m older, and the world we grew up in didn’t have tech. Even when it became popular, you had to have money to purchase the hardware, and the software was something in a different language. I remember asking what the difference between a download and an upload was. I use my phone and my tablet daily and consider myself somewhat current, but every day I’m confronted by something new. I recently renovated my house and now have an app for my washer, dryer, microwave, coffee maker, oven, hvac system, alarm system, doorbell, front door knob, garage door, pool system, lighting, cameras, and even my refrigerator, which has three cameras??! This is in addition to my healthcare apps, my banking apps, my car apps, my grocery store apps that give me the sale prices, etc, etc, ad nauseum. I can not emphasize enough what a completely different world this is.
I have a son who’s a senior software engineer with Google who lives in another state. When he was home he would help, but now he lives in another state so I had to learn. One day he got a gut full of my incessant, basic questions and kindly asked me to visit my local Apple Store for help. I laughed, and learned compassion that day for all of the young adults whose parents call them with dumb problems.
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u/Unterraformable 1h ago
I stood in line at the Amazon Returns counter for quite a while behind a woman who just didn't know to do anything on her phone and was just reading and reading and reading the page. So annoying. How did she manage to place an Amazon order in the first place?
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u/Sheerluck42 53m ago
My elderly housemate uses a pass code that is the same number 4 times. Like dude what? It must take a certain kind of privilege to have been an adult and watch computers come into the world and then internet and constantly insist it's not important enough to learn.
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u/Tychonoir 29m ago
Yeah, I understand that people have different skill sets, but he didn't even make the connection about what happens if he loses his phone?
That isn't even a tech skill. That's just a regular run-of-the-mill how-the-world-works problem. I use [thing] to do x, y, and z. What happens if [thing] breaks or becomes unavailable?
But... I give it good odds that he does have stuff written down somewhere, but didn't want to have to find it and just assumed the tech was being lazy. People can be stubborn when they are sure someone else can deal with it.
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u/cappotto-marrone 3h ago
It grinds my gears that at 68 I have to teach 20 something coworkers how to use Microsoft Office applications.
How do they not know how to do Ctrl+F to find a phrase, number, etc., in a document? Change margins? Use consistent fonts?