Teaching My Parents about Technology
By Glenn Farr
I should have known I’d be driving uphill with a few failed cylinders and no clutch when my mother sincerely asked me one day if it were necessary to rewind DVDs.
Yes, she actually asked me that when I gave them their first DVD player at Christmas a year ago. And to make matters worse, she butchered the acronym, calling the shiny silvery discs VDVs, making them sound more like a social disease than a piece of technology.
I had to laugh, no matter how hard I tried to stifle it. My father had to laugh, even though he’s only marginally more technically proficient than she.
I was comforted a few months later when Zits, one of my favorite daily comics, featured a panel in which teenaged Jeremy was asked the very same question by his parents. At least neither my mother nor I were alone in this respect. (Jeremy, though, had the grace not to laugh.)
It’s rather amazing that I have any technical expertise whatsoever, even more so that I am writing a technical blog, albeit one focusing on the softer, user-end aspect of technology. When I joined NACA in the late‘80s, I worked on a black monitor that flashed bright, eye-deadening orange letters at me as I typed. When we moved toward a Windows-based desktop network, I groused and complained about how none of what I saw on the screen made any sense to me and I’d never be able to use it.
Well, sometimes, it just takes the right form of technology to get someone hooked. A short while later, a co-worker introduced me to his personal Mac, I obtained Internet access and I was reborn a technophile. (That’s not an endorsement for Apple®, folks—it’s just that Macs always sang a song to which I could harmonize.)
In fairly quick order, or so it seems from a backward glance over time, I moved from computer to computer, then on to two PDAs and several cell phones, cable TV boxes, satellite dishes, and two high definition TVs. (Oh, and somewhere in there, I must list a couple of answering machines and home burglar alarms that were amazing in their own rights.)
Because my parents neither own nor use any of these devices except a satellite dish and a simple cell phone, I am the walking encyclopedia on all things technical to them. I do my best, although some of the questions they ask are truly mind-boggling.
For example, my mother heard all about the controversy surrounding the illegal downloading of music from the Internet and thought ALL downloading was illegal. I happened to mention I had gotten some music online (meaning I bought it from iTunes) and she nearly freaked, thinking the FBI would be storming my door any minute to carry me off to jail.
When I explained I had bought the music with an online account using a credit card, I was greeted with another chorus of alarm. My parents won’t even plug in the phone line to their satellite converter box for fear the satellite provider will erroneously charge them for pay-per-view without their knowledge. Using a credit card to buy something online through a computer to them is tantamount to selling your soul to the devil.
Anyway, last Christmas, I gave my parents a DVD set of the first season of The Big Valley. (They like westerns and hate sci-fi, which is exactly the opposite of my viewing preference.). On my next visit, my mother told me the DVDs didn’t work—that they were able to watch only one episode per disc, while “the box says there are more on there. Maybe you need to take them back.”
When I pointed out they were neglecting to move the cursor on the DVD navigation menu to select a different episode than the one they had by now watched four times, their mutual response was a somewhat sheepish, “Oh.”
On a subsequent visit, I discovered they had added their local network channels to their satellite package. They did this all on their own—I was so proud. They equally proudly announced they had done it because they knew they’d lose their over-the-air analog local channels when the nation converts to digital broadcasting in February 2009.
Well, bless their hearts, they got it partly right. They didn’t realize those disappearing analog channels would be replaced by crisp digital versions, also available for free over the air, and took down this enormous rotating rooftop antenna they had used for years. Due to where my parents live, that antenna could pick up signals from three states—South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia. And although they live only 30 minutes from Columbia, SC, they preferred the network affiliates in Charlotte, NC, Greenville-Spartanburg, SC, and Augusta, GA—all of which that monster on the roof could pull in.
Their satellite provider, on the other hand, offers local network channels based on broadcast market, and due to their proximity to Columbia, SC, they were given the Columbia TV stations when they added the locals to their subscription.
They did not expect this and quickly began to complain about not being able to watch “Greenville, Spartanburg, Augusta or Charlotte” anymore.
When I explained they could have kept the rooftop antenna—and with a digital converter box (that would be almost free due to the government coupon program)—could have kept watching the far away stations they preferred, they were not happy.
All I could say was, “If you had asked … .”
To which they responded with another sheepish, “Oh.”
After a beat, my mother asked, “Well, what is this digital TV anyway?”
I sighed and began composing an on-the-fly Reader’s Digest condensed version of digital and high definition television and what it all meant to the average viewer. I completed what I thought was a fairly easy-to-understand description, only to be greeted with two blank stares.
“Well, what’s the difference between high definition and what we have through the satellite?” my mother asked.
I thought I had just covered this and, nearing exasperation, responded, “A high definition picture is about 10 times sharper that what you are looking at right now.”
Referring to the scene from Bonanza being transmitted to their TV via satellite (which, by the way, I had explained WAS digital, but only standard definition), she asked, “How could anything look any better than that?”
I turned toward their console television set that is so old it now displays only muted shades of yellow, brown and blue, and shook my head.
“Trust me. It just is,” I said, remembering their responses to some of my childhood queries, and left it at that.