10
lorentz
4y

Just bought a laptop for my grandma. She is a very intelligent person, used to be an engineer and traveled across the globe, but she missed out on the computer revolution. Now she's stuck at home alone and terribly bored, so we will introduce her to the internet to socialize and join our zoom parties.
What advice do you have for someone who has plenty of life experience but is completely new to the internet?

Comments
  • 5
    Show her omegle.
  • 2
    @SevenDeadlyBugs Alternative? Genuine question, it has to be free but I have a server.
  • 4
    @Lor-inc Hangouts? Discord? Skype? Any WebRTC app?
  • 2
    Introduce her to medium, to kill time and get adapted to newer technologies.
  • 2
    My granpa had the same life experience. The only thing that goes through his head about internet is the News and Pokerstar.
  • 3
    @Lor-inc Jitsi Meet - run your own instance.
  • 5
    Suggestions-
    1. Follow a single app/site for a single task. Old people mostly don't catch up with the variety in UI intuitively.
    2. Select focused app/site which does single task. Else you'll find grannies posting "Did you eat lunch?" as a Facebook post on her timeline.
    3. Teach how to google stuff.
    4. TEACH HOW TO DETECT ADs and AVOID THEM (my old folks do it all the time)
    5. Strongly suggest never to download/install anything at the first stages. (Better to disable them if you can)
    6. Strongly suggest to restrict outgoing-interaction with the internet community, except with known people.

    All points from personal experience, may vary case to case... My folks loved Youtube to find any song/video they want. If your granny's an engineer, subscribe her up to related channel and blogs. Keep her desktop clean with suggestive shortcuts of what to use.
  • 0
    What @saucyatom said. Jitsi meet is a great solution! If you don't want/can't run your own instance, there are so privacy ones (Framasoft has one, I think).

    Other thing, might not be best since you already bought her a laptop, but I had an easier time bringing my grandmother in the "Internet world" with a tablet instead.
  • 1
    Give a grandma the solution to a tech problem and you help her for a day. Learn her how to google and you help her for life

    And give her a decent ad blocker and chrome os/linux, it's way too easy to fuck up windows
  • 0
    @arte921 I would because I sincerely believe that linux isn't all that much more difficult with no background, but she might need office later on, and she already took part in some sort of training where they used windows.
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