Parents Just Don't Understand

Do your parents not understand technology? Do they ask you stupid questions? Do they send you absurd text messages? Do they use words like "MyFace,""SpaceBook,"or "The World Wide Web?"

Your parents' Kindle.

My mom sent me an invitation to join Facebook.
John ., BC

My dad called me to ask about removing a virus from his computer. Somewhere in the middle of the instructions, he interrupted me to ask, "Are computer viruses man-made, or are they like real viruses?"
Drew Banyai

Any time my grandpa has an issue with the content of a webpage he asks us to get the number to "the internet" so he can complain.
Trey B

While at the doctor's yesterday, I told the doctor how I wasn't feeling well, my symptoms, etc. She nods, and turns to her computer. I keep talking, but notice she just keeps clicking the same thing over and over again. After a few awkward minutes of her ignoring me and fervently clicking, I ask if something was wrong. She looks up and asks me why the internet won't open. I lean over and see she's opened exactly 14 new documents in Word. I close them and open the internet. This isn't exactly rare stupidity, so I let it go. Later, as I go to leave the room, I take a look at the computer. She had left a google search for "WEB MD" open. I don't think she ever even made it to the site.
Deana L.

My mom thinks Google's "Suggestions" are the only options available. If she's trying to find something and it doesn't come up in the suggestions, she'll say, "Sorry, it's not on the internet."
Sarah C

I was in Florida the past weekend for my cousin's wedding. My extended family and I were all hanging out at the pool, enjoying the weather (along with other hotel guests). My uncle starts talking about random stuff and eventually mentions twitter. He turns to my grandpa and says "Grandpa are you twittering?" My grandpa responds, "All of these girls in their bikinis, I've been twittering since we got here." We all tried really hard not to think of our grandpa as an 82 year old creep.
Daniel Bogosian, Central Michigan University

One time in high school, I went to my friend's house to hang out. We were leaving the house to go do whatever, when his mom came out the front door as we were leaving and handed my buddy the cordless phone from the kitchen and said, "Take this cell phone in case I need you for anything."
Brandon Jones, Penn State

I work in a small computer shop in my town. One day a woman walks in, and tells me she has a problem with her computer, that it has broken. I then ask her the problem and she shows it to me and describes her situation. She told me that she had been online, ordering something off the net, when she had put her card in and it hadn't done anything, just got stuck. Naturally assuming it was something to do with the machine i start booting it up and examine things, this is when she asks me "can you get the card out first please," curious i asked what she meant. It had turned out that with her limited computer knowledge that she had managed to go online, start ordering items, get to the checkout and wanting to pay with a credit card, she had push her card into the floppy drive. She never came back to the store, but did have to order a new floppy drive.
Arran Blomfield

Today a friend's mom posted her results of a Facebook quiz: "How cool are you?" ...Apparently she's 87%.
Andrew Crawford, Geneva College

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