Well, I’ve done it, after talking about it for at least a year. I’ve gone and bought my parents a computer. It will be delivered to their door sometime in the next couple of weeks, and I’ll either go set it up for them or get someone I know to do it. It’s partly a gift to them, but it’s also partly a gift to myself – a gift of communication. I want mom to be able to e-mail her cousin, her friends who moved to Chicago or Israel, her friends from all the varying places we’ve lived. I want dad to be able to communicate with people beyond my mom, difficult when he has a hard time getting out of the house and is too deaf to talk easily on the phone. Mom is forever asking me to look things up; I want her to be able to do it herself. Dad insists he wants to write; I want him to have no more excuses.
And most of all, I want them to be able to e-mail. Mom gets upset when she doesn’t talk to me often enough, especially when she realizes how often my friends communicate with me. I’ve explained how much of it is via e-mail. E-mail can be sent, or answered, in pieces or when time permits, and that makes it easier.
So I’m hoping that technology will supply a solution for some of the problems of communication and isolation for my parents as it has for so many others. The first step was a computer – and that step is being taken.
Titchadesh – may they use it in good health.
You might also want to investigate to see if anything is available yet to enable speach recognition for internet chat or telephony.