news.bbc.co.uk — The research also found that more than half of all people over 65 voluntarily excluded themselves from internet access because they see no benefit to the net. However, more than two thirds of pensioners who are currently not connected said they would get online if they had the right support.
Jul 5, 2006 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountJul 5, 2006
Yep, you're an ass. It's like saying - "I don't mean to be thankless, but I think I'd be better off without my parents". You do realise that thanks to 'old people' we have the Internet to be better off with in the first place. The internet was certainly not invented by teenagers as much as you may believe that.
Closed AccountJul 5, 2006
Even those who claim to have an interest in getting a little internet savvy see it as a huge hurdle for them. Why? I blame all those who have talk about "learning the internet" and offer classes on it. It isn't that hard, even for the oldest among us. As long as we treat it like something that's difficult, it will be perceived that way.Did grampa need classes to navigate his new TV when he bought it? No. Did he have a techer the first time he cracked open an encyclopedia, perhaps once but that's it. Then why does he need help to navigate a Google search?It's a mental block. He's been convinced that the internet and all it's resources are not for him therefor it's out of his reach. Well meaning people who are concerned about seniors getting duped by spam or other online financial predators forget that Grampa has lived through a lot more than them and might just be capable of spotting B.S., all he needs is someone to point out that the "online world" is just as corrupt, actually not more, than the real world.
tonyjack63Jul 5, 2006
leave it to gov't. to get involved and they'll not only screw it up for seniors, but they'll screw it up for everyone else.
voltagensisJul 5, 2006
Old people and young people are the same. Some are smart and receptive, some are not. We have these 80, 90-something professor types and then we have the average person, which you can't expect much out of considering the time period that they came from.It's all about the person, his attitude, and prior education. Not about his age. And don't forget that some of these old timers built the foundations of computing for our use in the 21st century.
electrobotJul 6, 2006
I'm 24 and I agree with 2 of those:"MacBook speaker volume lower than expected" (my hearing is better than average, but computer speakers are crap, and iBook G4 and MacBook speakers are even quieter than most PC laptop speakers.)"Does MySpace cause cataracts?" (What is it with people and try to disgust/repel others with color schemes and page layout?)
deadjoeJul 6, 2006
My grandmother fears the Internet because she is afraid that she will catch viruses--REAL viruses like the flu and the common cold. I gave up on explaining the differences to her. This is no joke.