Help Your Parents to Learn Digital and Cyber-security

Many of you were born into the digital world. Help your parents get on with technology and cybersecurity.

In this post, I want to tell you a story about my parents; more precisely, about how they discovered the technology for themselves and what that meant for me. At the end of the article, I will try to recap the key points and give advice to those who want to safely introduce their parents to the world of technology.

My Beginnings in Technology

I can still remember the day I bought my first smartphone - an HP iPAQ that ran on Windows Mobile 2003 SE. I brought it home back then and showed it to my parents. My father picked it up and said: “Looks good, but where is the keyboard?” He then tried his luck at using the cell phone but quickly concluded that he would rather use his old Nokia with the reliable one Numeric keypad would remain.

My parents are not of the digital native generation; in fact, they didn't start working with computers until the early '90s. I can still remember my father treating the keyboard like a typewriter. Our first family computer was a 100 MHz Pentium with 6 MB RAM, a 1.2 GB hard drive, and an external 28.8 kbit / s modem. The computer ran under Windows 3.11, but later we updated the operating system to Windows 95.

As far as I can remember, I always tried troubleshooting when the computer had a problem. Whenever the internet didn't work again, I was the one calling technical support; when mIRC hung itself for the umpteenth time, it was me who connected the chat client to the correct server.

My interest in programming rose when I was writing scripts for mIRC - a chat program we applied before ICQ or MSN Messenger. Maybe my love for computers and my later work in a technology company can be explained by the fact that my parents bought the computer when I was a child and learned to love it back then.

From Clunky Cell Phones to Smartphones

One day when both of my parents' phones needed to be updated due to battery problems, my brother and I persuaded them to buy two new BlackBerrys. My brother already used one. Dad's first reaction after the phone call was that he would need toothpicks to hit the right keys on the keyboard.

While my brother tried to explain to my parents how to use their new phones, my father said desperately: "I think I have to study first to understand how to use the part." Mom, on the other hand, was with them after a few days Easy with basic functions.

After a couple of years with the BlackBerry - and with the advent of touchscreen phones with larger displays - my brother and I decided that it was time for our parents to own two smartphones that could do the job. We both voted for the Microsoft Lumia 525, which we believed was the easiest smartphone to use at the time and the least bit of malware caught.

Shortly after my father got used to his new smartphone, Microsoft announced that the company would end support for Lumia phones, which meant the apps my parents used to use would no longer receive updates. So we had to think about the two new smartphones again. This time the iPhone won. As always, we showed our parents how to use the device again, and they both learned relatively quickly.

The Moral of the Story':

Choose Gadgets With a Simple Interface.

If possible, stick to the same operating system. The migration from a flip phone to BlackBerry, then to Windows Phone and then to iOS made our work much more difficult. Had we decided on an iPhone from the start - at least in my parents' case - we would have saved ourselves a lot of problems.

Choose a system that has long-term support. Of course, things like this are always difficult to predict, but I think it's unlikely that Google will suddenly stop developing Android or quit Apple iOS for the next five years. To be fair, I have to say that both the BlackBerry and the Windows Phone were very popular back then and a longer lifespan could have been expected.

Choose a system that you know and use. It is much easier to explain things that you already know about.

Digital Parents

My father is a dialysis patient and always complained about the enormous boredom he felt during his treatment. So we bought him an iPad because he was already familiar with the user interface from his iPhone. He then signed up for some online writing classes using his iPad.

He called me regularly to ask about downloading and installing certain apps. Sometimes he would dig deeper to find out how to send emails with attachments. I tried to explain all the steps to him with all the patience of an angel because when I answered him once that I was too busy, he said to me the trailing; “I have wasted 20 years of my life raising you. So you can probably spend 5 minutes explaining to me how it works."

Some parents may struggle with technology in silence - and they will have their reasons - but that was a turning point for me. My parents made me who I am today. And now it was my turn to help them - and after all, technology was an issue I could help them with.

Of course, my parents didn't know much about cybersecurity either. But since I was already in the industry at the time, I knew a lot about the threats there were and I decided to teach my parent's safe cyber hygiene.

It wasn't easy to explain to you some things that felt logical and obvious to me. Fortunately, our encyclopedia was able to help, and eventually, they began to take up one and the other concepts.

At one point my parents became real professionals in analyzing their WhatsApp messages. They were able to distinguish authentic messages from phishing attempts and knew whether or not a link was a cyber threat.

My father even started telling his friends about malware and phishing campaigns. Although with them (just like me at first) he came across granite. All they knew was that they needed virus protection for their computer, nothing more.

And the Moral of the Story':

• You need to be patient and explain basic things to your parents. Take your time! After all, your parents raised you.
• Explaining cyber hygiene to the elderly is a must. Simply installing an antivirus utility is not enough. Start with the basics, but teach them how to spot threats, especially phishing.
• Start with the basics early enough.