Dr. Brat wrote:

your deceptive editing of a post (when
you almost never bother to edit posts)


Bull. I am a compulsive snipper. I rarely include an entire previous
post, only the sentences I am responding to, unless the previous post is
only a sentence or two. In e-groups, it's bad form to include the whole
post, because those who read digest then have to slog through the same
thing a dozen times, and I see no point in doing anything different here.


My point was that Lucille and Sheena were not wrong in saying that
"everyone they know" is on-line, in spite of your contention that
grannies aren't aware of on-line trends.


I never said that ALL grannies were computer-illiterate, just that I
know the clientele at this particular event are not as avid computers as
Sheena and Lucille and wouldn't be likely to know what's online.

That "everyone they know" is online doesn't mean that every granny in
the country is online; my own observation is that the majority are not.
The cited statistics say that I am correct that the majority of people
over age 65 are not online, no matter what small pockets in Lucille's
and Sheena's areas may lead them to extrapolate about the rest of the
country. The percentage may be growing, but how much of that growth is
simply people from the 50-64 age range aging up into the 65+ group? As
we boomers age, we'll take our 75% ownership into the 65+ group, but how
many of the current seniors (who'll then be in the 75+ or 85+ group)
will have added a computer to add to the ones the boomers are bringing?
Those are the statistics I'd like to see -- broken out by age brackets
and not lumping 65-105 together.

Now, if someone took my statement about a particular group of grannies
whom I know personally and you do not, to refer to every single granny
out there, then the problem is in the reading, not the writing. It was,
to me at least, clear that I was referring specifically to the clientele
I was catering to with my booth, and not what any other grannies might
or might not be interested in. I'm not selling to Sheena or Lucille, or
the people in their area. I'm selling to a particular group in my area,
whom I know to have expressed distrust for the internet, based on the
number of scams and hacking/identity theft they hear about on the news,
and disinterest in spending their money on computers because they don't
know what they'd do with them, and don't spend their money on things
they don't need.

Obviously, if I'm referring to grannies who aren't online, and have no
interest in buying a computer, I'm not referring to Sheena and Lucille.

To quote from the Times article "Mrs. Daum worries that she will hit the
wrong button and lose all her work, or even break the computer -- common
fears among the elderly. ''This is a generation that takes things very
seriously,'' Ms. Dichter said. ''The first thing they worry about is
that they'll break the machine.''" Clearly, if it's a "common fear"
then my mother is not the only one out there with the phobia that she'll
push a wrong button and break an expensive computer.

The article also cites to "peer pressure" for getting the elderly
online. The converse is also true -- if almost none of your friends are
online, then there is no peer pressure for you to get online. Among my
parents' friends and family, the consensus is "don't need it", so there
will never be peer pressure on any of them, because none of them are
planning to buy a computer.

Even the ones who do have computers, the computers were forced on them
by their children, not something they themselves wanted or asked for.
Both of them spent months avoiding the computer and still use it only
grudgingly, and have no interest whatsoever in expanding their abilities
beyond sending e-mails.

Based on the conversation I had with my aunt after she was given the
computer she didn't want, I can pretty well predict what my mother would
say if I showed up on Christmas morning and installed a computer in her
house -- almost word for word the rant I heard from my aunt about her
kids wasting their money on something she doesn't need, when there were
so many more useful things they could have bought her.

Whenever I'm upgrading, I offer Mom the old one, fully expecting that
she'll say no, but I'm not pushing her into the computer age the way her
neighbor's kids did; my approach will always be "do you want" rather
than "here it is, I don't care what you want". Since my mother knows
she's never going to get an e-mail from her grandchild, I know she'd
never turn it on at all, so there goes the "family pressure" notion, too.

As for my other aunt, she has 3 grandchildren, and steadfastly refuses
to get a computer, because all the grandkids are a free local phone
call. If they have photos to share, they bring them to Sunday dinner.
No e-mail required. Same for the clientele at this craft fair; for the
most part, the grandkids aren't that far away that they need e-mail to
communicate with them.

You may be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but the dog's got to
want to learn. I'm sure I could get these grannies to sign up for
classes in Conversational French or Ten Afghans to Crochet or Classical
Music 101. They'll come out in droves for movies, concerts, lectures,
and parties (if my bus is late, I'm hard-pressed to find a seat), but if
you want to teach them computing, be prepared for a long lonely wait,
because it's not something they're interested in learning. Based on
personal observation of this particular batch of grannies.

YMMV based on the particular variety of grannies in your area.

Oh, yeah, and then there's my granny-age (but not a genealogical granny)
friend who lost her parents, DH and only child, and was somehow talked
into getting a computer for late-night companionship since she was now
"all alone in the world". After a couple months, my occasional e-mails
started bouncing back; she decided she'd rather spend the money on
stitchy stuff than on internet service. If she needed companionship,
there was always talk radio, plus a newly-widowed friend and I had told
her "call anytime, day or night". She'd had a computer at her job, and
sitting in front of the computer at home just seemed too much like being
at work, as well as time away from her stitching. So, there are all
sorts of reasons why grannies would choose not to be online, and each
person's reason "to be or not to be" is perfectly valid for themselves.

--
Karen C - California
Editor/Proofreader www.IntlProofingConsortium.com

Finished 7/27/08 - MLI Christmas Visit

WIP: Oriental Kimono (Janlynn), MLI The Teacher (gift to
the library), Bethany Angel (Marbek)
Retrieved from UFO pile: Marbek's Snow Angel, MLI Farmers Market

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