Kids Get Parents Wired

Studies

from the just-helping-out dept

The other night both my father (no technology slouch, himself) and I were online in the middle of the night and, despite being multiple time zones apart, he was asking for help via instant messaging getting his wireless router to work (it had stopped working after a storm-related power outage). I did my bit of family tech support (me: “have you tried rebooting?” him in a slightly annoyed voice: “multiple times!”) and got him up and running again. It appears, not surprisingly, that I’m not the only one to do things like this. A new study has found that children regularly help their parents with tech support needs. The study also found that older adults are increasingly using the internet to communicate. Most interesting in the results is that 43% of older adults seem to be using instant messaging to communicate. If you read the popular press, you’d believe that it’s only “the kids” who use instant messaging.