Old Lady cute wtf



  • In my mother's retirement community, I occasionally give a this-is-a-computer class to the old folks so they can email jokes and pictures of the grandkids back and forth. I use very basic analogies like disk == file cabinet, directory == paper-folder-in-file-cabinet, document == individual page in paper-folder, and so forth. Most of them sort of get it.

    Yesterday, one of her friends called her to ask me a question about filling in a form on the computer. It was some web-form for elderly-benefits, and one of the options was pre-checked. The instructions were that if you don't want to ... then erase the checkmark from the box. She wanted to know why the check wasn't erasing. I told her to leave it on and I'd look at it at night. (Can you see it coming?)

    When I got to her house, the screen was covered with pencil-eraser-bits on the spot over the checkbox.

    Admittedly, the instructions should have been geared more toward computer-illiterate old folks, but I still had to choke back the laughter.

     



  • Wow, I've plenty of times seen people poke at screens to click on buttons and the like, but never ever seen someone write on a screen(bar with the obvious use of a stylus).



  • Wow, just wow!

    Reminds me of the old joke about the blonde secretary and the Tipex. Never thought someone would actually be dumb enough to try it.

     
    (That's typist white out/correction fluid for those not familiar with the brand name, don't know if Tipex is global or regional)
     



  • It's funny because the user not only didn't know anything about how a computer worked but clearly doesn't understand how a pencil eraser works as well.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @DAL1978 said:

    Wow, just wow!

    Reminds me of the old joke about the blonde secretary and the Tipex. Never thought someone would actually be dumb enough to try it.


    (That's typist white out/correction fluid for those not familiar with the brand name, don't know if Tipex is global or regional)
     

    We have "Tipp-Ex" in Europe... I think it must be a similar product.

    The thinner was allegedly a favourite substance to abuse to the extent that one educational authority banned Tipp-Ex. For 6 months anyway.....



  • Every time I run into something that's a little non-obvious on the computer (and this can happen in Windows, Linux, on the Mac...), I think to myself, "how would my mom have ever figured that out?". Hell, she still uses AOL because she can't figure out Yahoo messenger.



  • @DAL1978 said:

    (That's typist white out/correction fluid for those not familiar with the brand name, don't know if Tipex is global or regional)
     

     

     



  • @SenorLapiz said:

    Every time I run into something that's a little non-obvious on the computer (and this can happen in Windows, Linux, on the Mac...), I think to myself, "how would my mom have ever figured that out?".

    Every time anyone says something that suggests they think computers should be easy for everyone to use, I think to myself, "why do we make this unrealistic assumption?"

    These are the most complicated and sophisticated tools our civilisation has ever produced, and we expect people without a shred of technical aptitude to be able not only to use them in straightforward ways, but to be able to configure them from scratch, do arbitrarily complicated things with them, and fix them when they go wrong!



  • Too many people have been believing too many salespeople for far too long. This expectation has been around since salespersons started touting computers as 'magic'.

    Then again, 16-,17- and 18-year olds are often put in charge of  vehicles and weapons of war. Which is the real WTF? Society in general, or unrealistic expectations brought about by exaggerated claims used to increase sales?



  • @ChengWah said:

    Which is the real WTF? Society in general, or unrealistic expectations brought about by exaggerated claims used to increase sales?

    I don't think there is a big difference...



  • If you think that somehow a 16 year old cannot be made capable of handling a weapon or a motor vehicle, then that's the real WTF.

     


Log in to reply