

A  99 year old lady becomes an iPad user - writes poetry  - mlongo
http://ipadwatcher.com/2010/04/22/99-year-old-lady-becomes-an-ipad-user-writes-poetry/

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mlongo
Based on a comment a reader left on the post, I thought I'd add a small
personal comment.

I have such a senior lady in my family. One with 94 years and a pretty dull
life. One that can’t really read the small type on a regular paper book or
newspaper. She is my grandmother and anyone who thinks 90+ year old ladies sit
in front of a desktop computer and just starts doing things is saddly
mistaken.

~~~
Tichy
My grandmother is 90 and using a computer. I am happy to have set her up with
one a couple of years ago, against the recommendations of other family members
who thought it would be no good.

It is a standard Windows XP computer. She emails, surfs, writes letters and
does online banking.

What is stopping your senior lady - eyesight can't be fixed with glasses
anymore?

I admit I keep wondering if I should show my grandmother more interesting
things, like social stuff. I am just not sure what - World of Warcraft maybe?
I myself don't chat on the internet (except HN and Twitter), so I am not sure
what would be a good place to send her to. Maybe just Facebook? (I also don't
use Facebook, but maybe other family members do).

What would be a good site for multiplayer games? I myself use Brettspielwelt,
but the user interface is not very good.

~~~
froo
Perhaps send her to flickr, my grandmother loves to look at photos, so she
might get a voyeuristic kick out of it.

I've preordered one of these for my grandmother and have started considering
getting one for myself.

~~~
Tichy
Thanks, but I was looking for something more social/interactive. Flickr seems
passive, unless you take photos yourself.

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soitgoes
My limited experience of older people and computers has been very positive.
All the older members of my family (70s - 89) use computers for email,
research, shopping etc. The eldest (90 in June) has been playing with
computers for years and until very recently was having fun with programming
languages and wrote quite a few simple python utilities. A couple of them use
and are comfortable with cloud based tools like delicious. If I asked, I think
they would probably give up TV before their PCs and laptops.

~~~
mlongo
I think that is great, and they are very fortunate. Unfortunately it doesn't
match my experience with such seniors.

The ones I have contact with are totally intimidated by computers and can't
seem to get past the complexity of using such simple things as the mouse and
figuring out how the Windows work.

The ones which are more adventurous do use computers, but they loose their
Windows and end up opening the same thing several times because the previous
window was covered up by another, that kind of thing. This is where I believe
the iPad makes such big difference to these people.

~~~
soitgoes
I know what an important tool computers can be to the older folk in my life;
so, yes, if the iPad allows more seniors to benefit from computers then that's
fantastic.

------
mlongo
This story has been updated with a video from Fox12 Oregon, with an actual
interview with the lady who has glaucoma and seems really happy about being
able to read again.

She mentions that she could write, but she couldn't see what she had written.

