How do the computer illiterate cope?
 

I see that passengers flying into Singapore need to fill in an online application for entry within 72 hours of flying. Of course, many countries require ESTAs and the like which isn't generally a problem. My elderly mother struggles with computers, but thats fine because I or one of her daughters can do the application for her. I have started to travel with a dumb rather than a smart phone in order to help get away from it on holidays (shame on those who send out too many e-mails). I'd be fine if there was a library open and those staying with relatives would be ok but I'm wondering if any check in staff online could tell me if there have been any problems with the technically illiterate. Is it something that a check in agent could complete online?

I'm also interested because I chair the Patient Participation Group for my local medical practice and one thing that often comes up is elderly patients that cannot cope with NHS IT (not always the best). (The solution for us, the receptionist will talk them through it or do it online.) I'm wondering if this is a common problem for air travellers.

I too have a dumbphone, chemotherapy has left me with numb fingertips so using a touchscreen is a bit hit-and-miss. It's not just aviation, increasingly every aspect of daily life requires you to 'use the app' which means that if you haven't sold your soul to Apple (r)(tm) or Google (r)(tm) you're stuffed.

I get texts from my local NHS GP and Hospital Trust that contain long and complicated links made up of a jumble of letters and numbers that I have to type slowly and painfully into the desktop. I wish they wouldn't do that.

Maybe it's time to legally require another analog option everywhere? Admittedly there is a lot of cost savings in digitalisation but if it is done without a plan B people are left out. Which I think is not acceptable to any society.

I can relate to that, chemo has interesting side effects. Was OK whilst Blackberry was still going but have yet to find a decent mobile with a keypad. The ones I've tried were rubbish.

My solution is to carry a small laptop which has in-built wifi and a MiFi (Mobile Wifi hotspot). It means it looks as if I'm a bloke carrying a handbag, but it lets me compute on the move. I miss the BlackBerry too, it's stored in a drawer, useless, since 3G was turned off.

There is a 4G phone with a keypad, it's called the Jiophone 2, but it's locked to an Indian network and only for sale in India. It's a shame they never sold it outside of India, I'd have bought one.

I am very fortunate to have a wife who understands these things. Years ago, when I flew aeroplanes, certain switches and levers did known things. These days, with digital devices, they have unknown updates and obscure icons, etc, etc, and I never know what next. There are no instruction manuals, you are left to intuit how to do it. And as for touch screens on moving vehicles, in an attempt to save money and look cool, you have screens that require you to look away from the road and, then, when there is a bump from a pothole, to touch the wrong part of the screen. Please give me simple tactile controls!!

Could you use one of these?

IIRC, there are small Bluetooth keyboards that can connect to a phone

There are instruction manuals. Yep. Really. Very well hidden on the manufacturer's website. It's a test. By the time you have found it you don't need it.

Tell me more! The one thing my dumbphone (which does Bluetooth) lacks is a decent keyboard. These rare creatures haven't been spotted in the wild since the BlackBerry went extinct.

Windows vv Fords

For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on:-

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated,

"If Ford had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, Ford issued a press release stating:-

If Ford had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash.........twice a day.

2.. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3... Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4.... Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5..... Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6...... The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.

7....... The airbag system would ask,"Are you sure?" before deploying.

8........ Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9......... Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10.......... You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

P.S. - I'd like to add that when all else fails, you could call "customer service" in some foreign country and be instructed in some foreign language how to fix your car yourself!

To answer the OP's original question : with some/great difficulty. As one of the digitally excluded, I would certainly vote for that one.... The cost savings always seem to all accrue in one direction...

Another angle to this issue, especially in regard to Singapore and other countries requiring something similar to the SGAC type set ups.

If you are aboard a cruise ship and you have Singapore as either a port of call or your final port prior to departing home, you still need to complete the online SGAC 3 days prior to entry into Singapore. The average cruise ship has an internet room with around 20 computers all dependent on Starlink or other ISP which, by virtue of being at sea, can be a little patchy and/or slow and occasionally non existant connection. If you have 2000 pax all needing to get the paperwork completed in time, it can be a tad chaotic and highly stressful (for the crew too as they guide those who would not usually operate a computer at home), not everyone has devices that can be used for internet with them such as smartphone or tablet/laptop. So if anyone here does cruise and they are visiting Singapore or Singapore is their disembarkation port, bear it in mind that if you do have your own device and can use it without getting in a muddle when doing official stuff such as SGAC or similar, then make sure that you take it with you cos the ship's internet room could get a little hectic.

sadly the Bill gates story isn't exactly true

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/car-balk/

The basic premise of this gag — the computer industry's touting advances in computing technology by comparing them to the automotive industry is met by a stinging rejoinder from car manufacturers — began life as a mere three-line joke at least as far back as early 1997:

He actually said:-"Microsoft CEO Bill Gates made a brief reference to the existing PC vs. automobiles price comparison concept during his remarks at the COMDEX computer exposition in November 1997:

The PC industry is different than any other industry. The volume, the openness, the innovation, it's really unequaled. In fact, comparisons are often done between this industry and others, and it's just stunning when you look at it. The price of a mid-sized auto, it's about double what it used to be. Cereal, I admit I don't buy that much cereal, but research shows that, too, has doubled in price. And if you take that and say, what would those prices be if it were like the PC industry, the car would cost about $27, and the cereal would cost about one cent. So, I think there's a lot to be learned by watching how this industry has done what it's done."

all the rest was gradually added as the joke circulated -

"Although this piece now circulates as a "true" story complete with specific details of person and place, it's still nothing more than an evolving joke that someone decided would be funnier if it were put in the mouth of a real, well-known person."

Asturias, Thanks for the correction but it is still a good joke, and very much how I feel sometimes!!

Unfortunately, companies and govts want the financial benefits of digital online - but ignore the older generations. If they were prepared to wait, then the change will phase through over 20 years.

The same occurred with cheques (UK spelling) as the banks wanted to end them but were persuaded to let them die out naturally.

As I have mentioned before, I still print out all travel info and boarding pass - even if it is on my phone.

I think anyone who was't exposed to computers before they were 40 years old will be a bit elderly by now. They would have been born around 1930 , maybe up to 1940. So 85 years old at least, now. Not to late to learn if they want to, but if they had wanted to they have had enough time by now.

My wife was a computer programmer, back in the 1960's. She was very good at it. But she has a lot of trouble with the current computers -- menus keep moving around, where is the "right click" on a Macintosh, not noticing a small popup hidden among all the other muck on the screen. She is convinced that home computers are not yet ready for prime time, daily use.

I learned how to program a computer in the early 1970s. The language was FORTRAN, and you input you program on punched cards. Not such useful skills when dealing with a smartphone or the latest iteration of Windows. I stick with Linux, which doesn't have as flashy an interface, but at least each iteration isn't a steep learning curve from the last one. Call me a Luddite.

Punched cards! There's LUXURY - I think I can still read 5 hole paper tape

Cards were fine - until you dropped a whole box...................

Sinclair Basic for me :)

Started off playing with a ZX80 someone gave me in 1983, trying to learn coding from a manual. Didn't really get it... moved on to using various types of PC at work and home and got quite adept at creating batch files to automate certain things and later working with HTML code but still not my forte.

What does irritate me is learning to use a new device and two months later finding an update has changed all sorts of things; example my Samsung phone no longer gives you switch off options if you press the on button for N seconds, no, now you have to go and find an off button at the top of the screen...

My 99 year old aunt sends emails from a Chromebook and has done so for two years - people say "can't you show her how to do X, Y and Z". No, it's enough that she can do what she does, she'd never even used a typewriter before including during 40 years with the Tax Office...

The last time I came across FORTRAN was 1997. I think NASA still use it for talking to the Voyager satellites. I self-taught BASIC and I was one step ahead of you using the Sinclair ZX8x series, I was using a Commodore PET. At one time BASIC was universal, but I think it has gone the way of the dinosaurs, I think only hobbyists interested in ancient computer use it now.

If you want another bit of 8-bit era nostalgia, visit https://nmsceefax.co.uk .

I had the same, you can go into the settings and change it back.

If you tap that button at the top of the screen,
the next page has a "Side button setting" option that lets you switch it back on again.

Annoying when they give you a facility on an app, and then take it away again.

Ah, brilliant, sorted! Many thanks. Yes the alternate button use was to launch their Ask Gemini AI nonsense... these things should be opt in.

Dragging this back (kicking and screaming) to aviation, I recall when Gemini was a Ghanaian freight outfit operating a Britannia 9G-ACE... tho I suppose any self loading freight would most likely have been four-legged...

Given the amount of computer issues airports and other major companies have had recently, then a manual alternative is certainly needed. The damage caused by hackers is costing companies millions (never mind the inconvenience to their customers) and I can see it getting worse.. State sponsored hacking in particular seems to be on the increase too.
A manual alternative would certainly help these companies and would also benefit those not quite so savvy. Of course, I doubt it would be easy, but I think it would be a wise move.

I did that on a London Underground train. That wasn't the problem it might have been because I was on my way home 120 miles away. OTOH the roll of wet-ink drawings fresh off the computer's plotter were not in a protective tube and got squashed under my arm in the excitement, resulting in sharp creases right across them. The control console of the CDC6600 I was using is in the Science Museum and was on public view in 2018 but not now.

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The aeroports use Windows, so of course they are going to crash and be hacked. The City of London has used Linux since the days of RedHat5, and I've not heard of Lloyd's of London, the London Metal Exchange, or the London Stock Exchange experiencing crashes.

The NHS uses Windows 7 and fax machines, and I'm a bit concerned that my medical history is open to every hacker from Russia, China, or North Korea. What could they do with it? I don't know, but I'm sure it wouldn't be good.

Dunno if belongs here, but I am a windows guy though I started my career in Unix many moons ago. As I get older I sometimes struggle with web applications and phone apps perhaps because they're using newer ways of interacting with them. I still love programming for fun. Programming is actually a very creative process that keeps your brain fit whilst being very relaxing. I created this game for fun initially under lockdown: playmeyer.com. Backend is written in C# and runs on Ubuntu Linux on a rented virtual server. Frontend is in TypeScript and Angular using CSS.

I am perfectly happy with the thread drift. The references to such matters used by SLF and the airlines is more than enough justification. :ok: