Parents. We love them, but boy, do they know how to embarrass us. Before all you had to worry about was them telling a shameful childhood story, pulling out that old picture of us in a plaid jumpsuit, or providing a little TMI about their personal lives. Now your mom has an iPhone, and can do all this and more with a few quick swipes and taps. We look at a few other funny and embarrassing things our parents are doing with tech...
Typing in ALL CAPS
My own mother does this and I simply can't get her to stop no matter how many times I tell her how it's inappropriate online. "I like it," she says. So that's the way it's going to be — can't argue with mom.
Pulling Out the Magnifying Glass
I learned this new one at a dinner last week. Rather than bother with pinch-to-zoom gesture, our friends' parents have gotten accustomed to pulling out the good ol' magnifying glass to read text and emails on their smartphone. It goes without saying that this is mostly done in public and preferably when she's nearby.
Loud and Inappropriate Ringtones
It still makes me chuckle when my mother's phone rings — a terrible MIDI of a hard rock guitar riff. This for someone who listens to Etta James albums and, I kid you not, Susan Boyle. Maybe she insists on it because it rises her to action before the call goes to voicemail - something she still doesn't know how to check.
Printing Out Every Email
I still haven't figured out the convenience of this practice. Maybe it helps for easier reading like the magnifying glass routine, or maybe they really want an abstract monotone print of the picture attachment - because you know their printer is out of a color cartridge or two. Printed emails are plaguing parents all over the nation, despite all our attempts to nudge them to abandon printing anything and everything out!
This is all in good fun of course. Our parents are our family whom we love, and we have more in common with them than we may like to admit. Who knows what new advances or changes will come along as we age and have kids, eventually making us the subject of embarrassment?
Got any additional embarrassing tech habits your parents do?
(Images: 1. Joanna Zjawinska, All others. Chris Perez)
Apartment Therapy's Sofa Shopping Guide
Nikki’s Sweet and Cheery Print Studio
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Stanley Console by ...
5 Things Paris Taught Me About Travel
Recipe: Ham, Cheddar & Chive Egg Bakes
Commenting on every one of my Facebook posts with something cheesy and then adding my friends and writing on their walls. It's awesome.
Gah, my mother comments on every single one of my Facebook posts with something ridiculous and cheesy, too, but since I was trying to hold off on FB and she jumped right in, she was friends with my friends well before I even joined.
Also, she doesn't know how to use her damn phone. Sometimes when I call, I'm assuming she tries to send the call to voicemail or silence it, but answers it instead. She doesn't realize it, so I can hear her entire conversation with whomever she's with (which can be very funny). So I hang up and try again, because all I want to do it leave a message, but, of course, she answers again without realizing. This sometimes goes on for 3 or 4 cycles. Now, if it happens once, I just end up texting her with my question.
Thankfully, my father avoids social media and other technology if he can help it. He only has a work cell, which he is adamant about only using for work business.
My mother has Google's Picasa application installed on her desktop, and no matter what photo she's looking for, she looks for it "in" Picasa. When she finds the photo she wants, she can't get it into Facebook or as an email attachment, because, shockingly, Picasa is not a location on her hard drive she can link to. She calls my sister and I to try to talk her through figuring out how to locate pictures on her hard drive, making what should be a powerful convenience into a sort of painful hassle.
I haven't observed to verify, but I'll assume my Dad has no idea about pinch & zoom on the iPad given his one finger point to type that carried over from his GameBoy days (who else didn't use their thumbs to control it?!?)
Also, I've never seen somebody who takes longer to pull the damn trigger on a purchase... he was wowed by the iPhone and wants one so bad, but held off for a world phone that would work with Verizon. The 4S came out, which could be used globally and he still kept waiting... wanted to wait until after my brother's wedding (in Oct) and then vacation in Mex in Dec/Jan. Now he's talking about getting one when the 5 comes out. We'll see...
Now, he's dragging his feet in the same way for a MacBook, that Mom is "giving him" for their 40th anniversary... he's only been talking of switching to Mac for 2 years now.
Good one @Jon Tingley, my mom does the Facebook thing too just forgot about that one. Not only is the comment cheesy but it screams for attention because it's written in all caps, of course. Gotta love it.
These are all delightfully embarrassing "problems" to have with ones parent....
I've noticed a pattern with my Mum. When she was catching up and started using e-mails, I started seeing chain letters pop up in my inbox. Now that she's been on Facebook for a year, my news feed is full of the same stuff. Wonder what will come next?
My dad will use the word "text" when he really means email, he thinks the two terms are interchangeable. e.g. he will call and say "Why didn't you respond to my text?" To which I tell him I never received one. Before I realize he means email, we argue because he thinks I'm ignoring him. Then I politely remind him that the "text" and "email" don't mean the same thing, but he always forgets.
My parents also have a tendency to leave 2 second voicemails, they are always along the lines of, "Hey, it's Dad call me back. Bye." There's no way to tell if it's urgent or not, or what my parents want. Chances are, if I see a missed call from my parents I'll call them back, so why leave a voicemail at all?
If my mom wants me to look at something on a website, instead of just sending me the URL, she copies the entire page and pastes it into an email. Drives me crazy. When I tell her to just email the URL, her response "I thought that's what I was doing"
Gotta love 'em
I'm sure all you tragic hipsters will find something trendy that's waaaaay above your poor parent's ability to comprehend. Then you won't feel quite so embarrassed about them. Or, wait! No... No, you couldn't possibly... Could you? Maybe enjoy their quirks and eccentricities, and yes, their terrifying squareness.
By the way, I can find some twenty-something schmuck who does every silly thing your poor old parents do.