Aging parents and Technology

[rdrr]

I am currently dealing with an aging parent and the ever increasing complexity of our digital world.

My aging father had a very accomplished life in technology. He graduated from Michigan State with a BS in Electrical Engineering and did his first gig with Sperry Univac and worked on project with the US Military ground/satelight communications. While groing up we always had technology in our house from an Atari 800 to an IBM XT. In the 70 and 80s he redefined his career and help setup the HMO system, working with Roslin Carter on her First Lady initiative around National Healthcare, and ended up at Digital working with them to setup their Medical Benefits. I believe they were one of the first companies to setup a copay system for prescriptions.

After he retired, I did notice him struggling with concepts like cloud(s) and the apple and google ecosystems, but he managed to muddle his way through it, kinda... Then a couple of years ago he suffered a few strokes and ended up having a brain bleed that nearly killed him during the pandemic. Which leads me to now. He is a shadow of his former self, and recently has gotten himself in trouble with viruses, spam, phising, and even given away his SSN a few times. I don't trust any of his devices, except one that I have rebuilt and have sophos running on. His other laptop and iphone are no longer connected to his apple account. I have changed his passwords on the laptop I rebuilt and put in a password manager and set complex passwords on all his banking, IRAs, amazon, credit cards. All of this of course, has gone sideways on me and he is really unable to use anything I try to help protect him, because it's too complex. He does need a new phone, but I am leery of getting him because his current phone is an iPhone 7 with the button. I just know he cannot handle the learning curve of a buttonless phone. He does not want a Jitterbug, and I am at a loss. I cannot even help monitor the apple account or google email, because of the required 2FA/MFA on the account.

There is a huge opportunity here and I don't understand why companies haven't jumped on this. There is parent controls for your children, but not parent controls for your parent. One that would give them some dignity and freedom, but helps family members feel like they won't lose everything. There should be a line of smartphones that are easy to use, and someway for us to monitor the emails and financial accounts without the need to take it away from them.

Just a rant from someone who has stepped in and spend the last 5 days without much sleep.

 

[Roller]

Given how easily it is to do the wrong thing and take a financial or other hit, is it possible your dad is at the point where he shouldn't be handling his accounts on his own?

 

[Nycturne]

Given how easily it is to do the wrong thing and take a financial or other hit, is it possible your dad is at the point where he shouldn't be handling his accounts on his own?

I think that's what rdrr is getting at with this bit:

There is a huge opportunity here and I don't understand why companies haven't jumped on this. There is parent controls for your children, but not parent controls for your parent. One that would give them some dignity and freedom, but helps family members feel like they won't lose everything. There should be a line of smartphones that are easy to use, and someway for us to monitor the emails and financial accounts without the need to take it away from them.

Some step between full autonomy and no autonomy when it comes to accounts.

 

[Eric]

I am currently dealing with an aging parent and the ever increasing complexity of our digital world.

My aging father had a very accomplished life in technology. He graduated from Michigan State with a BS in Electrical Engineering and did his first gig with Sperry Univac and worked on project with the US Military ground/satelight communications. While groing up we always had technology in our house from an Atari 800 to an IBM XT. In the 70 and 80s he redefined his career and help setup the HMO system, working with Roslin Carter on her First Lady initiative around National Healthcare, and ended up at Digital working with them to setup their Medical Benefits. I believe they were one of the first companies to setup a copay system for prescriptions.

After he retired, I did notice him struggling with concepts like cloud(s) and the apple and google ecosystems, but he managed to muddle his way through it, kinda... Then a couple of years ago he suffered a few strokes and ended up having a brain bleed that nearly killed him during the pandemic. Which leads me to now. He is a shadow of his former self, and recently has gotten himself in trouble with viruses, spam, phising, and even given away his SSN a few times. I don't trust any of his devices, except one that I have rebuilt and have sophos running on. His other laptop and iphone are no longer connected to his apple account. I have changed his passwords on the laptop I rebuilt and put in a password manager and set complex passwords on all his banking, IRAs, amazon, credit cards. All of this of course, has gone sideways on me and he is really unable to use anything I try to help protect him, because it's too complex. He does need a new phone, but I am leery of getting him because his current phone is an iPhone 7 with the button. I just know he cannot handle the learning curve of a buttonless phone. He does not want a Jitterbug, and I am at a loss. I cannot even help monitor the apple account or google email, because of the required 2FA/MFA on the account.

There is a huge opportunity here and I don't understand why companies haven't jumped on this. There is parent controls for your children, but not parent controls for your parent. One that would give them some dignity and freedom, but helps family members feel like they won't lose everything. There should be a line of smartphones that are easy to use, and someway for us to monitor the emails and financial accounts without the need to take it away from them.

Just a rant from someone who has stepped in and spend the last 5 days without much sleep.

I feel your pain here, both of my wife's parents are too technically challenged to even use the basic texting functions of their iPhone, even though I've given them instructions and simplified as much as possible. My mother was somewhat savvy that way and really didn't have any issues before she passed, we were lucky that way.

However, I would say that some of these PW managers can be inconsistent between platforms and even confuse normal tech savvy users from time to time, now imagine putting that into the hands of an aging parent.

I don't have an answer here other than doing our best to be advocates where ever we can and I agree that this seems like an untapped concept for tech.

 

[fischersd]

When I was managing my grandparents and parents, I switched them all to Macs to get away from the constant virus peril (and the UI's are easy enough for them to use reliably). Pretty sure the current iPhone SE still has Touch ID?

When it comes to Mobile Device Management, you're going to have some trial and error finding one that's right for you. Could you not change the age on your parent's Apple ID, so Apple's cloud thinks they're a child and you can use Apple's parental controls?

I would send Apple that feedback as well - letting them know that we need those controls for our aging parents - it is something they should have tackled by now.

 

[rdrr]

I think that's what rdrr is getting at with this bit:



Some step between full autonomy and no autonomy when it comes to accounts.

Exactly... I think the biggest fear for seniors, is losing control. As their world gets smaller, because the world gets too complex for them, I think the last thing to do it take it away email/accounts/web access completely. As I stated in the beginning, my dad has a sense of pride of what he achieved throughout his career. It is heartbreaking to see him get so befuddled by technology we take for granted. While I am trying to help him, I am also aware of my own aging and wonder how hard it will be for me in 15 - 20 years. And I try to empathize with that thought as I try to help him.

My last resort would be to take away his ability to reach out into the world. I don't think Apple or Google do enough to make sure they protect seniors. I am often trying to calmly walk him through step to connect back to apple. I cannot tell you ho many times he has confused his laptop login password with his appleID password, and invoked a recovery key from his phone or macbook. The stupid 2FA stuff is next to impossible to walk through over the phone with him.

 

[Roller]

Exactly... I think the biggest fear for seniors, is losing control. As their world gets smaller, because the world gets too complex for them, I think the last thing to do it take it away email/accounts/web access completely. As I stated in the beginning, my dad has a sense of pride of what he achieved throughout his career. It is heartbreaking to see him get so befuddled by technology we take for granted. While I am trying to help him, I am also aware of my own aging and wonder how hard it will be for me in 15 - 20 years. And I try to empathize with that thought as I try to help him.

My last resort would be to take away his ability to reach out into the world. I don't think Apple or Google do enough to make sure they protect seniors. I am often trying to calmly walk him through step to connect back to apple. I cannot tell you ho many times he has confused his laptop login password with his appleID password, and invoked a recovery key from his phone or macbook. The stupid 2FA stuff is next to impossible to walk through over the phone with him.

There's a spectrum between completely removing your dad's ability to reach out vs. allowing unfettered access that could have significant adverse consequences, neither of which I would recommend. It's a matter of balancing risk against his need and desire for autonomy. Communication, whether by phone, email, video chat, or texting, probably has the least likelihood of harm, as long as he is careful about watching for phishing and other scams. Financial accounts are more challenging, but it should be possible to set them up to limit how much cash he can withdraw/move or how much he can spend. What are his thoughts?

BTW, I'm a senior, and I agree that software systems are way too difficult for many people. Apple is supposed to "just work," but, far too often, it just doesn't. MFA, Apple ID, and iCloud are a pain to set up, and fixing them when something goes sideways is incredibly confusing. Apple compounds the problem by changing the UI and functionality on their OSs every year, often making them harder to use.

 

[fischersd]

Oh - and enabling the Silence Unknown Callers feature could help keep them from getting propositioned by scammers (you just have to make sure their Contacts is well populated so friends and family aren't blocked

 

[rdrr]

All very good points. My toughest challenge with him, and I'll admit I am very new to this, is trying to implement something that isn't going to be complex for him as soon as I walk out the door. For example, he has a MacBook Pro with the fingerprint sensor that wasn't configured. I tried to set that up, and after 30 minutes of him being very frustrated trying to fill the finger print in by placing and lifting his finger, we decided that is too much. Currently he needs a new phone, and I cannot imagine the process of redoing that exercise or even worse trying direct him to move his head around for face ID.

 

[Roller]

All very good points. My toughest challenge with him, and I'll admit I am very new to this, is trying to implement something that isn't going to be complex for him as soon as I walk out the door. For example, he has a MacBook Pro with the fingerprint sensor that wasn't configured. I tried to set that up, and after 30 minutes of him being very frustrated trying to fill the finger print in by placing and lifting his finger, we decided that is too much. Currently he needs a new phone, and I cannot imagine the process of redoing that exercise or even worse trying direct him to move his head around for face ID.

Other than using either device without a password/passcode or using a very simple one like "1234", which substantially reduces security, I think Touch ID is your best bet, since it only has to be trained once. Would your dad let you hold and move his finger during the training process?

 

[fischersd]

You can also have multiple fingerprints (I have left and right index setup on my Macs) - heh - yes, I can type my password just about as quickly, but I figure if I cut my finger, I'll be lazy and use the other hand.