Having had to move abroad and leave my ageing parents back in the UK the need for greater communication has become apparent in our family life. The telephone has always been suffice in the past to stay in contact, but now with our rapidly growing technological world, the ever increasing need for the Internet has become a realisation for my elderly parents. They noticed how even more isolated they were becoming by not have access to online shopping, special deals and just in general the inability to communicate with the outside world without being penalised for not having the Internet!
My parents having toyed with the idea of having a home PC and dismissing it for all it's complicated set up, jargon and trouble shooting. So we encouraged them to have an ipad. The appeal factor being easy to set up, small, portable and easy to use!
The computer challenge....
Setting up Broadband - Having seen adverts on TV for the first 6 months free, and just the basic package they needed, they made the call to switch supplier. For whatever reason, my parents did not understand, they did not receive the first 6 months free and had to wait more than the 10 days to get the broadband despite the 'special deals' as advertised on TV. However the Hub was distributed in the set time and payments deducted in advance!
The ipad - I ordered it online, and had it sent by amazon direct to their home so they were not confused completely by salesmen in a computer store. We set up email, Skype, and the necessary apps store account with username and passwords. Easy, all set.....or so we thought!!
Tuition - Now my parents being complete novices with a device such as this even struggled to switch the ipad on initially ! My 'over the phone' step by step instructions proved even more difficult. So my mother who was not to be defeated contacted Age UK, who were able to recommend a person who would go to their house to assist. Perfect we thought, an hour for the set up - which my parents did not really need to have tuition on, a basic introduction, then perhaps a follow up for an hour or so a few days later to avoid brain information overload. Oh no, the guy recommended came for 3 1/2 hours, I have no idea what took him so long to set up the ipad - which only takes 10 mins - as my personal experience and witnessed on many You Tube videos from start to finish! The guy suggested that the ipad was faulty, and left my parents 70 pounds lighter and none the wiser with regarding to using the Ipad!
The total experience my parents have had is unbelievable, does anyone have any recommendations or suggestions....?
Elderly fellow gran has become loudly racist
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Narrow miss. Bus and student on his mobile
