I’m mostly asking this question for smartphones, but I’m also just generally curious how others approach this.
My parents are both 75+ and live across the country. One has a smartphone and a chromebook and the other has a dumbphone and has a Windows laptop. They’re capable, but learning new things is pretty hard, and if anything goes a bit wrong they’re very unlikely to figure out how to get past it themselves.
The Windows laptop is easiest to manage because I can remote in and fix things pretty quick, and browser extensions prevent the ads which might lead to signing up for new services. I gave up on trying to figure out how to remote into the chromebook.
The smartphone is the most problematic since browser extensions are limited and don’t apply to the Google News app, where my dad spends a lot of his time. He’s managed to install a bunch of random apps that he doesn’t remember ever using, so now I have Google FamilyLink installed which should prevent that. But he also inadvertently long-presses on the home screen and moves icons around, removes them, adds new ones, etc.
I’m just looking for any tips people might have on this general topic. We’re all our family’s tech support in some way, it’s just getting more difficult for me as they get older.
One of the concepts that has helped me in the past is to think about how the most important piece of media for a lot of elderly people’s lives was the newspaper. When you consider how it was organized—nothing at the top of the first page really matters (all the title and date stuff), the important items are clearly labeled with headlines, advertising was obvious and separate, et cetera—it makes sense why they don’t understand modern UI. I feel like a lot of them also still have the attitude of "if it weren’t true, they wouldn’t be allowed to print it."