When a Senior Enters the Digital Age

Misty Hollow Carving
This BLOG is sponsored by “Misty Hollow Carving”. You are welcome to visit Misty Hollow and see all of my carvings.

My Web Site is a like a Gallery – please drop in for a stroll through.

To help me promote my Web Site please copy this URL address and email to someone today http://www.murraylincoln.com/ 

* * * * * * * *
Today’s Blog Post


When a Senior Enters the Digital Age
Okay… Okay… I finally did it. I yielded to an old urge and finally did it! Thought about it a long time before doing it… but we finally did it. I knew there would be some potential problems… but we did it anyway. Finally!

Did what?

What problems?

Well that decision was to finally break down and get Cable for our TV viewing pleasure. We signed up for COGECO, the local and regional Cable company. We considered another satellite connection with the outside world but when the great deal came by our way it was time to do Cable.

Now we no longer rely on the faithful three channels that we had plus one French station. We now have 70 channels to select from!

Wahoo!

Now our biggest reason for doing this was the fact that my 90 year old mother is spending more and more time watching TV. The quality of the faithful three had dropped with the movement to the Digital Age – where TV stations will have to get with the Government program and become linked to a new world.

Problems? Yep Problems! Big ones and little ones and many of them.

When I opened the new Cable Box that will link our TV to the outside signal coming into our home… I saw the horrific black thingie with all the buttons – and I GROANED OUTLOUD… “Alida we are going to have problems with this one! Lord deliver us!”

The new remote that comes with the Cable Box is twice the length of the old TV remote! It has about three times the number of buttons that my Mom’s old remote has on it.

It is definitely designed by the people that wrote the script for “Star Wars” or the more recent “Transformers” movies that my Grandkids love. I mean this thing can do almost everything possible in a room. Properly programmed it will be able to turn on and off anything in the room. All I will have to do is point and click – and Poof, Snap, Crackle and Pop something will happen at my command. Captain Kirk has nothing on me now!

BUT – It seems that after you successfully move past the 90th year marker in your life, technological things increase in their confusion department.

How in the dickens will I help my mom understand what has to be pushed or not pushed to get the program that she wants? But with a choice now of 67 more channels than last week – which one will be her favorite now?

This is the second day… somewhat easier than the first. As of Saturday there has only been two service calls to her bedroom so far. One because she had lost the reception again and the other because she didn’t know how to get what she might like to watch… but that was because she wasn’t sure what she wanted to watch… and what might be on at that time of the day.

On the first day there were about a service call to the bedroom every half hour at first.. then every hour toward the end of the day. Lost signal, lost picture, completely screwed up, and not the right channels. Okay! I knew that I would have some problems – but not how many problems that I might encounter!

The day before my mom was sure that she wanted me to purchase a Computer for Seniors that she found in a magazine she received. Oh Boy… I am not sure I have enough lifetime for a touchscreen, super whammo, extra easy computer? Hokey Mokey!

~ Murray Lincoln ~
http://www.murraylincoln.com/