10 Stories That Prove Parents and Technology Just Don’t Mix

Let’s face it, technology evolves faster than most of us can keep up. But for many parents, it might as well be written in alien code. From mysterious acronyms to touchscreen mishaps, the digital world is a minefield of confusion.

• I added my dad to our extended family group chat. He meant to text only me about how “Aunt Carol always brings the weirdest casseroles”... but he sent it to the whole group. Including Aunt Carol. She replied with a photo of a tuna jello mold and said, “Just wait for next Thanksgiving!”

• When my daughter was born, we started a blog so that all the family could see pictures and stories at the same time. My mother-in-law has accused me in the past of favoring my side of the family over hers, so I figured ok, here we’ll put everything in an open source that will be completely equal. She can’t find fault with that, right?
  She got mad and sent me an e-mail saying that my mother was seeing pictures on the blog that she couldn’t see. I explained that was impossible. Turns out my mom knows how to scroll. © tah4349 / Reddit

• My mum had been loaned a laptop so she could do some work at home. She called me to ask how to get on her Wi-Fi. “You don’t have Wi-Fi mum, you’ll need to take the blue wire out of the back of the computer and plug it in to your laptop”
  “I do have Wi-Fi! I can see them in the list! Just tell me which one to pick!” “They’re not yours, mum, they’re your neighbors’.” “They must be mine! They’re in my house!” © Unknown Author / Reddit

• My grandmother doesn’t understand the concept of my wall or private messages. I’ll randomly comment on a friend’s picture, along with 20 other friends. Then she’ll see my comment and start talking to me, on somebody else’s picture...
  The other day, I posted a funny picture of a baby with something stuck on its head, and she commented, “OMG, am I a grandmother again? Why didn’t anyone say anything? Why am I the last to know?”
  I immediately replied to her comment, saying no, it’s just a funny picture. She completely ignored that and carried on commenting in caps about what a terrible grandson I was and how much she can’t wait to meet the new grandchild. © Pagan-za / Reddit

• My parents thought it’d be a great idea to get my grandmother an iPod for Christmas and put me in charge of putting all her CD’s on her computer and then sync it up. I came back a month later, and she was using it as a paperweight. © Frenchy406 / Reddit

• “No mom, Amazon isn’t going to send you a box set of the season 6 of The Walking Dead after all the episodes air because you bought the episode through Amazon Prime Instant Video... That’s just not how it works.”
  “But, I already bought.” “You bought a digital copy of one episode, mother!” Been having this same conversation all week with her. She doesn’t understand and feels like Amazon ripped her off. © Sm***-Okie / Reddit

• My dad was trying to record a new voice mailbox message for his phone. He recorded it fine, but at the end, you can hear him in the background asking my mom, “Now how do I get this thing to stop?!” Then a “good grief honey, give it here” from my mom to finish the message.
  I get a good laugh every time I call him, and he doesn’t pick up. © Amazess / Reddit

• My dad turned to me a couple of days after getting his laptop and said, “How do I surf the net?” To which I replied, “Well, what do you want to look at?” He said, “I don’t know, I’ve looked at all the things I want to, and now I’m bored, and I want to surf the net”
  I said, “Well you can’t just surf, you have to have something you want to look at” To which he said, “Look I don’t know what I want to look at, I just want to surf, I’ll ask your mother.” She came in a couple of minutes later, asking me if I had got him started on surfing the net. © culturerush / Reddit

• My mother got a virus on her last computer and decided to replace it also because it was so old. When I was hooking it up, I was reusing all the old cables, so I didn’t have to reroute everything. “You’re not going to reuse those cords, are you?! They still have the virus on them!”
  I looked at her with a blank stare on my face and asked, “Are you serious right now, or are you joking?” She was dead serious, and my friend was in the room when this happened and could not contain his laughter. Had to explain to her that that is not how viruses work.
  © Sausage_McHoney*** / Reddit

• We thought giving Grandma a smartphone would be harmless. Cute, even. She just wanted to send us old photos.
  We set up everything, showed her the basics, and said one simple thing, “Don’t tap ‘Share All.’” She smiled sweetly and nodded. Three days later, she tapped it.
  The entire family was hit with a digital storm. Baby pics, blurry selfies, 63 photos of meatloaf, a 7-minute video of her yelling at Siri. The church choir got the photos. So did her dentist. And her bridge club.

Technology may keep advancing, but one thing remains constant—parents trying their best to keep up, often with unintentionally hilarious results. While we laugh at these moments, they also remind us of the generational learning curve and the charm of analog hearts in a digital world.