[James W. Fannin]

These issues are real.

[dr_who_2]

In other words, the study didn't prove much of anything, so the authors had to rely on good old fashioned common sense.

[VOA]

bump

[martin_fierro]

[tet68]

It's how they scheme behind your back, when they think you are asleep, then hatch their evil "Missing .dll" messages that gets me.

That's why I keep a gun on top of the computer, just in case.

Signed,
Geezer.

[LurkingSince1943]

WTF is an "older adult?"

If I'm 25 and you are 30, are you an older adult?

Sheesh.

[svcw]

What is an older adult?

[Fiddlstix]

Rim Shot

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Plenty of old adults can use computers with at least as much skill as youngsters.

[vietvet67]

Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many. ~Author Unknown

[GretchenM]

Everyone who uses a computer had to learn how to do so somewhere. Why should anyone think the elderly are any less needing instruction?

I learned to type in high school, before PC's were in use. I learned to use a PC one little step at a time, at work (with an orange-font monitor against a black background and the use of little floppy disks), but most of what I know I learned on my own at home on my own PC, the hard way: trial and error. FreeRepublic was a Godsend as far as starting to learn HTML.

[mountainlyons]

My complaints are there are several keyboard configurations, the basic simple commands like copy*.* are to fast and easy that they had to be replaced by slow cumbersome icons and buttons that you have to find a book (now impossible) to figure out the buttons and commands.

[Popocatapetl]

The solution is rather an easy one.

Most software shares the same few commands that do most of the work. Most everything else is "bells and whistles", unique to that software. Look at Microsoft Word, for example. Most of the time, you just type, then save or print and save, or discard. 90% of the program you almost never use. It is just Notepad with a spell checker.

So when you teach computer to older people, the emphasis should be on teaching the limited important commands that they will use over and over. This gives them a solid foundation on which to build their knowledge.

And yet, when they try to teach MS Word to older people, invariably they want to teach them so many bells and whistles that of course they get flummoxed.

[ozzymandus]

So somebody who never saw a computer until he was 50 isn't as skilled as some 20 yr-old who grew up using a PC? Duh! When I was in college, the only computer took up a whole room, and the people who took computer classes carried around big boxes of punch cards. Now, you can't even enroll unless you own a laptop.

[humblegunner]

Right click, Granpaw.

[fruitintheroom]

Can you imagine someone paid for something this silly?

[Aunt Polgara]

I can tell you why "older adults" are afraid of computers... they know how much they cost and are afraid of inadvertently breaking something that they paid a pile of money for.

The youngsters didn't pay for it, so they aren't so afraid of breaking it. :-)

[Publius6961]

What's an older adult?
Does that mean that eventually I am justified in hiring a young blonde to help me navigate --- through the FR forum, of course...

[Wheee The People]

What you say?

[Ditter]

Get the old f@rts Webtv, now called MSNTV2. It's computer for dummies who have never used one before . Sooooooooo easy even a caveman can use it. I am a satisfied user.