how do we accomplish ANYTHING on these things

(originally posted November 29, 2022)

My elderly mother has, for years, complained - fully legitimately - about her ancient, pre-smart flip phone and ancient Windows XP desktop, and how she feels she needs to get with the times. I got her a smartphone in January and a Chromebook for Christmas this year.

The main reason I'd put it off for so long is that, well, technology can be downright arcane if you don't have the right kind of institutional knowledge from constantly interacting with technology. I was worried she wouldn't understand how to do the things she normally does on the new stuff. I barely know how to use my own smartphone, but through a lifetime of using computers and playing video games regularly I've gained the mindset where I can push buttons to see what happens, read prompts, and intuit things from the results. Try things until they work, then remember how I did those things. Failing that, ask Professor Google.

My mother cannot do this. It has been a nightmare.

How do you explain how to work a smartphone to someone who has never used a smartphone? How to do something as simple as text? Her old flip phone had a physical QWERTY keyboard and she was able to text with that, but that phone had two main menus, controlled with physical buttons: Messages and Contacts. Push messages, push confirm on send a message, type it out, hit send.

With a smartphone, she has to hit a button to bring up the lock screen. She has to enter her PIN, push enter. Then, it brings up whatever application she had open last, often Contacts. What swiping motion or sequence of actions closes this application? How do you know how to swipe - the direction, the pressure, the distance? Then she has to find the messages application, tap on it to open it (a tap, not a press, not a hold, but how do you know the difference?), and then figure out who she wants to send it to... by finding them in the Contacts. Then, a virtual touch keyboard. Where is the send button? It's that paper airplane icon, isn't it? How do you know that's "Send" if you have no experience with this?

She nearly locked herself out of her new Chromebook because she'd forgotten her Google password and attempted to log in with her desktop Windows XP password several times. I have a PS/2 to USB adapter still in shipping because she needs a "normal" keyboard to type and specifically wants to keep the one she was using. She didn't know where the Enter key was on the Chromebook.

I am helpless to help her with this; I simply do not have the temperament. I get annoyed when I'm interrupted. I get frustrated in mere moments. Then, my reaction causes her to be afraid of touching anything on her device, and the problem only compounds. My brother could probably do a better job, but he is not allowed to visit until he gets a COVID vaccination.

My own smartphone is from 2015. I'm now terrified of upgrading due to this very phenomenon. I just want things to work the way I'm used to, that I feel like I've only just figured out. Next to my own body's physical failings, I feel like this is one of the main indicators that I'm growing older.

(i have since upgraded my smartphone)