[M_Six]

My 85-y.o. mother recently moved to FL and now wants to be able to converse with friends from MA by email. So I got her a Chromebook. Mom has never used a modern computer. She once did data entry for a hospital, but that was just filling in data fields back in the early 90's. Just trying to explain the mouse and clicking and scrolling has proven a challenge. Toss in a noticeable lack of motor skills and just getting her to click on an icon is difficult. And this is just for Solitaire (which I loaded to help with her mouse control skills.) Emailing is a whole other level.

Anyone else have an elderly parent who started in with a computer late in life?

[mccannable]

No, but I worked in an insanely busy(busiest for traffic in state not sales) corporate cellphone store in the largest retirement community in the word. They started teaching smartphone and tablet courses and still teach about 6 full classes a day. I understand your challenge as those are 4 years of my life I will never get back.

I do believe there is a point when it's not worth learning something. To me that point is when there is strong evidence there is no retention of info or self growth.(i.e. Simple task forgotten immediately or unable to make any self progression/discovery).

But I am far from an expert in that field, although I did take intro to psychology.

[NEFARIOUS]

For me, teaching my dad was a nightmare, but thank God it was in person, and he eventually got the hang of most things, although anything deviating from normal settings or a virus would send him into a total 911-grade panic. I strangely miss those, but then again I just want my dad to come back to life (intact, not a zombie or something) somehow.

My mom doesn't use hers for anything but Solitaire, emailing "mom spam" or poor-grammar emails (and she still holds down the space bar in lieu of "carriage returns" no matter how many times I explained to her the gist of formatting so all of her emails look weird), or putting random comments on my Facebook posts (e.g. I could be talking about sports, a check-in to a bar or something completely unrelated, and she would be like "Did you get my email? Ben [my cousin] is visiting Taiwan and I was wondering if you wanted to tag along"), and it drives me up the wall... And I'm in IT and hate teaching people stuff as it is since all I used to say was "hey, I'm the guy doing the wiring, contact helpdesk", and I know the people there won't put up with a 2 hour long-distance call to walk her through every damn thing whether on the clock or off even if I paid them top dollar... FML

[jlstyle]

Hardest part of mine was to explain this "internet".

[The Wind Breezes]

Really, the whole thing depends on how well she can learn. At age 85 most people's IQ has dropped so far that they can't learn or remember anything new very well. Unless your mom is exceptionally sharp for her age, she probably won't be able to use the machine without constant intervention from you, even once she's "trained". If you're ok with spending a lot of time walking her through things, then it's probably a reasonable goal to have her using email. I wouldn't even try surfing the web unless she's really astute.

On another note, Buzz Aldrin is about that age and he's still extremely sharp. I watched him get interviewed on Howard Stern and he was talking about apps and his twitter. lol

[M_Six]

She's doing better after just a couple of days. The hopeful part is that she's very much into using it. Loves Solitaire. I was worried she'd lose interest if she couldn't pick it up right away.

[MightyMouseTech]

Dealing with parents across the country. Lock that shit down. Give yourself admin privileges and install a remote desktop of somekind. Or end up with this when you visit on the holidays:

[CANGRKE70]

I taught my father how to use Facebook and his iPad. He's got really good at it too. Still haven't accepted his friend request. Hahaha.

[M_Six]

I went with a Chromebook for Mom so I wouldn't have to worry about viruses or malware or other such crap.

[yakuza70]

I got my mom an iPad about four years ago when she was 72. When I told her I was going to get her a tablet, she was very against it saying she would never use it and it's too expensive. I got it for her anyway!

Fast forward four years and she's in it constantly watching movies, YouTube, tons of games, email, texting, photography, FaceTime, Facebook, purchasing items on Amazon, etc. Honestly, it's really opened up a whole new world for her.

For elderly parents, I would recommend an iPad over a Chromebook since they are much easier to use and maintain, in my opinion.