Old People & Computers

Is windows simple enough that a middle-aged person can easily grasp by him/herself you think?

It sometimes puzzles me about people of that generation. Take like my dad for example. Each time he MUST use internet explorer eventhough I have tried hard to get him to use firefox so that we can avoid all the spyware and ads shit. But he refuses to because he says he is use to IE and be a waste of time to learn another browser. Also the concept of like minimizing a window or like simple copy/pasting is like soo hard fo him. Not to mention the fact that the moment you re-arrage the desktop icons just slightly, he starts to get totally lost. Heck he STILL hasnt known how to properly open/save a Word Doc. Each time ask me or my siblings to do it. It just boggles me sometimes. I doubt changing to a Mac OS system would make like simpler. Nor changing to a Linux system.

Mind you, I have seen other middle-aged and older people who are able to easily grasp all these simple computer concepts.

I think the overall point that everyone here is saying is that people of the old generation do not want to learn "trial and error".

I think majority of us learn a new technology by trial and error. There might be a minority that actually follow the manuals and help guidelines on how to use a software or new gadget. The old generation wants to do this perfect and correct the first time. Maybe they've been afriad of the old days when you coud accidently delete off the whole HD?? I doubt they could do such things unless they didn't READ.

I would also like to add how I hate it when you are with old people browsing the web together to find some information. So you do it at your speed. For me for example because I do web designs etc, I tend to know off hand how to get from A to B on one particular website and I speed read the contents until I find the part i need. Of course my parents would tell me STOP and takes them forever to read each page. Even if you point it to them they will STILL want to read everything else to be sure.