Ask HN: What's the best way to introduce my Grampa to the internet? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's the best way to introduce my Grampa to the internet?

4 pointsemhart9 comments

So, my Grampa is celebrating his 89th birthday today. He was a dairy farmer and a plumber and pretty amazing guy. He has recently fully restored an old Studebaker and just bought another one (from 1917) to work on. He's got all sorts of engines and incredibly mechanical machinery, and now he'd like to leverage the knowledge and social base of the internet to learn more about what he has, potentially sell some of it, and tell people what he knows.

I'm helping him catalog his collection and am researching some of the more interesting pieces for him, but he really wants to be doing this himself. I had dinner with him last night and he was literally fist pumping and yelling "I want to go online!" He's smart, but not savvy about this stuff, and prior attempts to teach him how to use his computer and navigate the web haven't gone well. I'd love to make this happen for him, but figured there might be other people who have more experience getting folks like my grampa online.

Thanks for any thoughts or considerations!

It would be awesome if you could upload the images and post the link. Studebakers are lovely.

Now, you should go and get your Grandpa an iPad (if you can). Tablets are very easy to use, and are the most un-computer like device there is. Browsing the web and typing in stuff is just a matter of using your fingertips.

I love that idea! I hadn't even thought of it. I definitely think that there is an intimidation factor at play when it comes to using his computer. I noticed a disused Samsung tablet when I was visiting with him last night. I asked in passing and he said there was "too much on it" but it immediately slipped my mind. I haven't played with it much myself, but I imagine I could probably lay his workspace out in a clean, uncluttered way and using chrome or any other browser that features most recently used sites, make it so he could, in a couple of clicks, be right in the midst of some forum or image site, or whatever. It's really in this moment that I'm understanding how far all of this tech has come in just a couple of years. Thanks for the suggestion, and here's a couple photos of the most recently acquired Studebaker:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/58197496/2013-03-14%2017.42.15.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/58197496/2013-03-14%2017.42.26.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/58197496/2013-03-14%2017.42.38.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/58197496/2013-03-14%2017.42.47.jpg

Cool car. I would hotrod it. (:

I think android is not as friendly UI wise as iOS. It's too clutered. But it should work for him.

Find a forum with his interests and use that to introduce him to the web.

You can teach him the basics of how to get there walk him through creating an account and making a post (most of these forums have an introduction section).

That's not a bad idea, depending on how narrow his interest/needs are I could probably even set it up so that the primary sites he's interested in are what the browser opens on default.

Perhaps try to explain the mechanics of the web first. Give him the parts knowledge, so he can build an understanding of what's going on under the hood.

Then show him google.

My brother, when I taught him to use computers/the internet (done this for my Mother, Brother and now my Grampa) took to this method very well. Understanding the concepts let him do anything he wanted. I don't know if its a language gap, or what, but I haven't been able to reproduce that result with either my Mother or Grampa. With my Mother is was just a TON of written notes all around her laptop. She refers to them often, but has become pretty self-sufficient. I help here out probably once a week with something she's forgotten, but otherwise she's good to go.

My grampa, on the other hand, doesn't seem to maintain that sustained interest, or persistence that my Mother had. He clearly believes (correctly) that there is a whole world out here, that he would like to be a part of, but his patience for understanding the nature of the internet is nil.

curious about what didn't go well the first few times he went online. What was the outcome of him, the Google search box, and a few hours of privacy?

an aside: you could create an account in his name on a popular car restoration forum, and let him introduce himself, lurk, share, whatever.

The outcome is he walks away from it. Turns on the TV and tells me there is too much going on. You're the second to mention the idea of a car forum, and I think that may be a good starting point to at least establish something that would sustain his interest and to reward his desire to learn.

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