Parents and Technology

[Xanatos]

Do your parents keep track of technology, or is the old TV still good enough for them? Do any of your parents play video games perhaps?

My mother never saw a point in playing video games, until I introduced her to Angry Birds that is. She was addicted to Angry Birds for quite some time, and she finally understood why someone might get angry over a simple video game. Her knowledge is pretty basic when it comes to PC and internet, let's just say she's happy as long as she can find news and cooking recipes.

My father's a lot better in that regard, he's fairly familiar with PC, internet, even smartphones (he's looking to buy himself one one of these days). He tends to watch all of his favorite shows on the internet. He plays video games since PS1, mostly sports games with rare gems (Call of Duty 2, Panzer Front) in between every now and then. With that being said he doesn't play games all that often now.

[Ryu-Kentoshii Hirokima]

My Mom Plays Some Video Games With Me, Depending On What Kind It Is. She Used To Play Pokémon Stadium 1 & 2 With Me When I Was Younger, And She Still Plays Some Games To This Day. As Far As Technology Goes, Mom Only Knows Some Stuff About Things. I Am The One With The Most Knowledge About Technology. Oh Well.

[Pete]

My mom is kinda up to date with technology, to a degree. She still has no idea how to switch the tv settings from cable to the dvd player, but she does have a kindle and she loves it. She also does a lot of online shopping and the like.

My dad was a lost cause. He could identify things like my ipod and could answer his phone if we called, but texting would never happen. He would also play Madden with me and Mortal Kombat back in the day. He was pretty good at Madden too, since he used to play football and knew a lot of the play designs. Every now and then he'd kick my ass in MK1 on the Genesis. Good times.

My grandma is like 85 and also has a computer and sends emails between her cousins and whatnot. It's pretty cool, but every now and then she runs into typical old people problems, like changing the ink in the printer lol. She also has a cell phone and uses it every now and then. I had to write out detailed instructions though.

[Josh_R]

My mother is very up to date with technology. She has a Xbox 360, PS3, and a Wii. She plays the 360 damn near everyday. I am pretty good at Gears of War 3, and she kicks the shit out of me everytime.

[Musashiden]

My mom is passable when it comes to technology. She can use her computer with little to no trouble, understands flash drives, and hasn't needed much help lately with her Nokia Lumia 900. My dad is also passable, but you wouldn't know it to see him in action. He also recently got a Nokia Lumia 900 and I spent the better part of 2 weeks teaching him the basic functions like connecting it to Zune, updating the firmware, downloading apps, etc. It's not that he doesn't understand it, it's that he's so unbelievably cautious with technology that he doesn't trust himself to do anything unaided, in case he manages to hit the "blow device up into a million tiny pieces" button. He plays CoD: World at War like a champ, though. Really good sniper, though he can't touch me in Black Ops when I sneak up and get him with a Tomahawk.

[NikkiLinkle]

My mother has no bloody idea. She knows how to make a phone call. I don't believe she's ever sent a text in her life. She's never used a computer. But she does have an LCD tv. She's only 51 Get with the times mum! I know 60 year olds who know more than you!!

But really, I love my mum. She's just never had much need or interest in keeping up with technology. Not a bad thing. Maybe I should be more like her and take a break from over use of technology..... Umm yeah no bloody way I do have a problem though.

[Clint]

My parents were both born in the late 1800s, so they don't really keep up with current technology. They still can't get past how a washing machine can wash clothes faster then a washboard. They're so old fashioned with technology trends that they make those rapist Amish seem up-to-date.

Honestly I should probably introduce some flim-flam to my parents in order for them to understand that technology exists to make life easier. They're still boiling water on the stove to get hot water, because they believe that indoor pluming is the devil's work.

[nix]

My parents are giant goobers when it comes to any kind of technology, they have to make sure ill be in the house if they want to watch a movie cause they dont know how to put a DVD on.. They cant grasp the whole switching from TV to AV to HDMI button despite my efforts to teach them..

My mother cant use a mobile phone, she buys one every few years, never uses it and then complains about nobody ever calling her on it..


I think its an age thing mostly, the mind just gets lazy and cant be arsed learning new tricks, or maybe thats just some people, who knows!

[DragonHeart]

My mom manages to do pretty well most of the time. She rarely calls me anymore, she just sends texts. I got her a nook for Christmas last year and she loves it. It's not that she can't figure things out so much as she tends to get frustrated very easily when say her computer is giving her a hard time. Or is that vice versa? Either way. She can do what she needs to probably 90% of the time. She even has a video game console, a Wii, though they don't use it much. And they still need help switching the TV mode over to the Wii or the DVD player.

My stepfather on the other hand, completely useless with technology. He's almost technophobic and avoids using it as much as possible. He's managed to break almost every GPS in the household, except mine because I don't let him use it lol. And he destroys phones on a fairly regular basis. He tried watching me playing Final Fantasy XII once and couldn't understand what I was doing, as in the gameplay. (I was going through the in-game tutorial, lol.) He's used the Wii occasionally, though he doesn't really understand how it works. /shrug. I don't know what to do with him when it comes to technology, frankly.

[Aerif]

My father being an IT consultant is good with computers for the most part, although he has been working for so long and hasn't really needed to update his skills so he sometimes runs into problems. Strangely enough he has had a smartphone for much longer than I have and is still unable to change the wallpaper on it without either my intervention or downloading an entire app just to change the wallpaper. Now and again he spouts out some rubbish about computers that is for the most part outdated, such as worrying about screenburn on new LCD monitors, or warning that Facebook causes viruses.

My mother on the other hand is probably a lost cause. She is capable of learning but often forgets whatever she is doing, and has needed my help every single time she has ever attempted to use e-commerce - including booking surprise holidays. She's also in the annoying stage where she types all in lower case and adds either 'lol' or 'x' or 'luv mum' to the end of every text message or even Facebook message.

My grandparents. Eesh. They can't even work the DVD player (although I question whether my mum could do that). They'll often press the wrong button and have to call me to come and unmute the television. They have cable, like us, and are capable of doing a whole manner of things like setting reminders for their favourite shows or watching episodes that they may have missed - but when they remember that they can do this they immediately need help in doing it.

Ah... Les technologies...

[Alpha]

My father is pretty on to it. He's one of those people who just enjoys learning things for the sake of it, but he always does it in the geekiest way possible. He tried 'learning' how to blog and contribute to wikis, by getting books from the library... rather than just doing it, or Googling some advice. He's fine with anything normal with computers and cellphones, and regularly pokes fun at my mother for having no clue. He is teaching himself te reo Māori, too.

So yeah my mother. Has no idea how to switch her cell phone off or on. Enough said. She has worked out a few things now, but I had to spend like two entire nights teaching her how to do the most simple things in Powerpoint. It sucks too that she must think I do really basic things at work, because if I told her how I write scripts in Python, she'd wonder how a python got into the country, and what the **** I'm doing to it, if she even knew what I meant by 'writing scripts' in the first instance.

[Crescent]

When I was teaching my mum how to use a computer, first it was like this...then I had to deal with this...

She's one of those "Back in my day..." blah blah old grumpy types who look down on my generation for all its obsessions with technology. My mum playing video games lmao..Yeh good one. She doesn't like me and how Im into my video games so much, she'd much rather I find a bf lolol..

[Cyanist]

My dad was the undisputed master of electronics. A new DVD-player? New camera? He'd sit down and read the manual and then he'd instruct others how it worked. But he knew his limits, he never tried once to teach my mom. She's unfortunately, quite helpless in...pretty much anything regarding technology. The extent of her abilities would be operating the washing machine.
Neither of my parents ever played video games with me. (mom said she played Pacman in her youth and decided then and there that games were repetitive garbage) Dad did encourage the playing of war games such as Tiger-Heli, tho. He used to get immersed watching that one.

[Dodie16]

My mom likes keeping track of the current trends in technology, so she keeps herself pretty well updated. She sometimes needs help with things like setting up what connections go where, but once you do that for her, she doesn't really need help with anything else. As for gaming, she has an Ipad (for her Angry Birds...), PS3, and Nintendo Wii as well. She mostly likes watching people play though, especially if it's games like Red Dead Redemption, Metal Gear Solid series, Assassin's Creed and Fallout 3/New Vegas. My dad...I think as long as he has his television working, he doesn't really care to learn much of anything else. ^^;

[Lily]

My mum's jut obsessed with eBay, she keeps ringing me about something AMAZING she's just seen, and emailing me links to things, the last one was something to do with balloons... I'm pretty sure eBay is the only site she knows how to get on, and she's one of those frustrating old farts that types with one finger and her nose hovering just above the keyboard so she can see the keys

I remember she liked playing Columns and Ecco the Dolphin on the Mega Drive, back when they were new. She was pretty good at Ecco actually, pains me to say it, but she got right to the end of that game, before the Mega Drive crapped out... I could barely get off the first level

I think I stopped advancing with the release of the PS2, nothing else after that interested me... took me a while to warm to thatafter my trusty PS1 actually, i only got one because I was sick of turning my ps1 on all its sides to try to get it to turn on....

Not that I'm much better myself tbh, I know my way around the internet, but I need talking through anything realting to my pc step by step, Im useless. I'm one of those people that said DVD's would never take off, they were just a fad, y'know.... I think I like to cling onto what's familiar, I hate change hahaha, I was only 19 or so at the time as well, I shouldn't be so unwilling to accept new technology into my life, I finally bent on a kindle a few months ago after saying I refuse to have one, I'll never get one etc etc. Still don't see what the point in iPads yet is either.

Me and technology have never gotten on really. I still can't figure the Tivo box out either. I end up recording things I dont want to record, when all Im trying to do is just find something to watch, I've only just conceded that yes, I CAN see a difference between normal tv and HD as well. He looked so smug when I asked what was wrong with the picture and he said oh, it's not HD... boooooo

I hate my iPhone too, I was happy with my motorolla thing,.... that used to be my mums, about 10 years ago. It worked and I could text. The fancy new things never have a signal and fall apart just by looking at them. I've had this peice of shit a year now, hes said when he gets his new phone, in feb, that i can have his iphone 4. I doubt mine will last that long. And his phone is in pristine condition. Il get my hands on it and kill it, he'd be as well just selling it and buying me some brick...

Oh yeah, and I'm a parent too, so I'm qualified to talk about myself in this thread haha