Last week's article (Computimes, September 20th) was of considerable interest, but could have been greatly improved by getting more of the views of older users. I am 72 and have two Apple Macs in the house for myself and my wife. My children grew up with computer access in the home some 20 years ago. Family members use IT to meet their own needs. I myself use email a lot and word-processing. I'm not interested in Excel, for example, or home office systems, but do make a lot of use of ProCite for cataloguing my books. I surf the Web very rarely. It's so much quicker to go straight to a book and get top-quality information instantly instead of having a long, boring wait for something which is almost always trivial or second-rate to download. As far as I am concerned the great benefit is email. I'm able to keep in touch with friends in Australia, the US, Canada, Italy, France and elsewhere very effectively at a very low cost.
Incidentally, one reason why IT use is much more developed amongst older users in such places as the US and Australia is the trivial cost involved there. In Australia, for example, one can be online all day and all night for the price of a local call. In the US the position is even better - a local call is free - so there is no limit to free online use. It is not surprising that Irish older people are highly aware of the minutes ticking by and the telephone costs mounting up. Cost is a major concern and one of the advantages of being older is that one is less likely to respond to over the top marketing. In some places, such as Australia, the cost factor is dealt with by having access provided free of charge in public libraries. Very often, as well as providing PCs in a library there are introductory courses given free of charge by other older people who are anxious to share their knowledge. It certainly makes good sense to get some experience of computer use before one lashes out on the considerable expense of a computer, printer, modem, software, additional telephone line. . . Another major inhibitor of older use is the truly meaningless jargon in which most messages are expressed, like "Error type 132".
Almost everything could be conveyed in simple English and it beats me why this isn't done. A meaningless message just creates frustration. I've even brought my machine in to be serviced and found that the service engineer had to consult several large technical manuals to find out what the messages meant. If you want older users for computers then they will have to be more user friendly. The fault lies with the producer not the consumer! Most people would like to have the same relationship with their computer that they have with their car. One doesn't need or want to know what goes on under the bonnet; one isn't interested in the distributor or the valves. Perhaps when cars were young it was different. One wants one's car to carry one safely and comfortably from point A to point B efficiently and at the lowest possible cost. Similarly one wants one's PC to carry out certain functions reliably and effectively. One doesn't want to be told there is not enough memory to do X or Y, or that this or that program is not available for some obscure reason. When I started my journey with computers I was fortunate enough to work in a company which had a first-class IT department. Any time I had a problem or query there was always a solution or answer instantly to hand.
This is another major cause of concern for older users - telephone responses often only add to the confusion as one receives instructions which are incomprehensible, while callout charges at £50plus a call are prohibitive when something minor is concerned. Maybe the answer is to encourage older volunteers with IT knowledge to provide a back-up service. Anyway, I suppose, this is something which will sort itself out with time as the PC becomes as common as the telephone or dishwasher. Older people are as different from each other as younger people. Some have a use for IT others do not. What I've written is no more than one point of view. I'm sure there are many others.
mgorman@iol.ie
Last week Microsoft marked United Nations Year of the Older Person by presenting multimedia PCs to two people already using IT. Former child star Jean Darling has developed an e-commerce business at indigo.ie/jdarling and J.J. Byrne (89) is writing a book about the Theatre Royal, Dublin. Two more PCs will be presented each month for the rest of the year. See the Education & Living supplement of The Irish Times on October 12th.