Technological Illiterate Parents

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My mother is technology illiterate, and at worst, a dinosaur when it comes to current technology. This is despite the fact that she has been using computers since they were introduced.

To give you a good story on how computer illiterate she is, last weekend she tried to log into her PeoplePC email account. I had to log her in for some reason, despite the fact that she knows the password. Eventually she called the customer support number and after waiting 15 minutes for a representative she got the shocking news: she missed a payment thus her ENTIRE emails, Court cases, documents related to her house, emails related to work, were deleted as well This is despite her paying her bill on the same phone call.

She was mad as hell and she vented that one day I thought she told me that one day when I visit her she needs to find a way to print out her most important emails from the account. But she kept forgetting and she went mad.

It took her a while to restore the PeoplePC account, and the emails. But I thought to myself "What if it happens again?" I'm afraid that I'm going have to teach my own mother everything I know about modern computer usage because to be honest, she does not know anything but the basics.

So, tell me your stories about technological illiterate parents.

I have heard this story from someone else, his father was trying to text someone repeatedly only to get the "text failed to send" message. His wife worked out the problem and explained to him that he was texting to the person's home number.

My mother is a bit weird in her attitude toward technology. She enjoys using new gadgets, but can't (or won't) figure out basic navigation for herself. For example, she owns a mobile phone (with many features such as full internet browsing), a Kindle ebook, a nintendo ds, a dvr and a brand-spanking new PC. She has all these things and yet didn't choose them herself and didn't set them up herself. I told her what phone to get and I ordered up an appropriate pc for her intended usage and I have to spend hours showing her navigation that is rather intuitive. What can you do... At least she tries to "stay with the times".