For those who are computer challenged, why do you think you have such an issue?

[MineralMan]

70. It has nothing to do with age. It's something else.

I'm not sure what, but there are both young and old people who have extraordinary difficulty and extraordinary success with technology. My mother in law is in the first category, and is 85 years old. Her little pocket transistor radio quit. My wife bought her a brand new
$50 whiz-bang pocket radio. I took one look at it and told my wife that she'd never be able to use it. It had an lcd display and buttons all over it. I went to Walgreens and bought a Sony pocket radio for $10. One thumbwheel for on/off and volume. The other for tuning. A slide switch changes bands. Just like her old one. I handed it to her, she turned it on, tuned in the station she listens to all day and that was that.

If she had the one my wife had bought, she'd have pushed the weather button or the mute button or the scan button and put it in a drawer the first day. MiL does not want to learn new technology. She has a computer. I set it up to start up and open AOL, the only thing she ever does on it. It's got mega anti-virus and anti-malware software. She still screws it up, and the answer is for her to shut it down at the outlet strip, and push the button to turn it back on. That one act reboots the computer, the router, and the cable modem.

I told her to do that if it won't do what she wants and then leave the room and make a fresh pot of coffee and not come back until she pours a cup. When she comes back, AOL is on the screen, and she's logged in. Even though the PC sometimes goes through the "Windows did not shut down properly" routine, it always comes back. Once a month, I spend an hour checking the PC out and fix anything that has screwed up.

She will not delete unwanted emails. She will not use a spam folder. She has strict instructions to never open any attachment in an email or click any link in any email, and she follows those rules. During my monthly checks, I just delete all email that has been there since before my last check, saving only those from her relatives. She has never wanted to go back more than a month to look at an email. She doesn't even remember she got it. She prints them all out anyhow, and they go into a box. Once a year, I throw the box away, with her permission.

She wants the computer, but has exactly zero interest in understanding anything about it. So, I made it work her way. She's happy, and I don't have to field trouble calls.

My wife knows how to use the PC, but she's lazy about some things. She will not uninstall programs. Since she reviews software as part of her living, things get ugly. So, every six months, I go in and uninstall everything she's finished reviewing and get her computer running fast again. Every couple of years, she dumps that computer and starts fresh with a brand new machine. I take the old one, restore it to its factory settings and upgrade.

Nobody has to learn everything. If they don't want to, things can be set up so they can use them the way they want.