Parents, computers and data
We all have the problem, that dreaded phone call to let you know that your dad/mum/uncle/relative-who-heard-you-know-computer-stuff with the plea for help thanks to their broadband disappearing.
Then comes the inevitable game of “do this - what happens” tennis where you hand out a verbal instruction and they press a completely different button then - and sometimes it feels deliberately - tell you there’s nothing on screen despite there being a very informative error message which might indicate the nature of the problem. Times like this I wish I have remote computer access to see what was actually on the screen rather than trusting the voice at the end of the phone.
Of course, when the broadband goes down - yeah, I know, it never goes down, right? - remote access becomes a matter of getting in the car and heading yourself to verify which lights are green on the router. Five minutes after arrival, the pain of the previous two hours on the phone is hammered home when you discover that the firm “No.” you received in answer to the question “Have you changed any settings?, was a little misleading as there now seems to be a toaster plugged into the back of the router.
What worries me is how the current internet generation will fare in their twilight years of technology slow-down. Will they (we) suffer from error message blindness or a bad case of the “I didn’t see no harm in loging in as root to install this free software I got in this Russian email”? I think it is highly likely we’ll do it because we can, because we will resent being left behind after we were the ones who rode the wave of the internet revolution, took the risks, contracted the viruses, cried when our 53-page Quark document became 100% corrupted due to an extended character and we had no file protection (yes, I know, Quark’s not internet, but some traumas never leave the soul). Them young ‘uns don’t know they’re born, so we had better give them a taste of the real technology experience.
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It is interesting to think about how we will handle the new waves of technology that are sure to come in the future. - I like to think I’ll be able to adapt and learn it!
Hah, remote access! If I had to do the same thing my remote assistance would be an 8 hour round trip!