Senior Parent Tech Support-Advice I Wish I’d Discovered Ages Ago

This New York Times article, Five Tips for Helping Parents With Technology, provides some helpful tips for people who are troubleshooting the computers of senior parents. Gadgetwise blog reporter Paul Boutin offers common sense suggestions that can simplify over-the-phone family tech support, and it’s my view that you should consider following these ideas almost to the letter if you are just now getting a senior parent started on a new gadget

My mother, who is a dedicated and enthusiastic user, bought a DOS computer early on, and over the years she has had several Dell machines. All well and good, and she works hard to learn, but with so many PC details, viruses, and intricacies, she regularly needs to call a person for tech help. The man she calls for tech consulting is great, responsive, and attentive, but many of his recommendations are different from what I would have suggested, so often it is more difficult for me to help.