A New Beginning: How vulnerable we all are - our parents and technology

Sunday, November 13, 2022

How vulnerable we all are - our parents and technology

After watching an Indian TV Serial “Jamtara” ( based on cyber scamming and phishing) I was talking to a friend and the first reaction was how is that possible, how can someone give the account number on phone to someone. I would have thought the same but I know better how vulnerable our parents are and how difficult the technology is for them.

I won’t go too far, take my parents as an example. While in India I saw the Google pay, pay ™ and bank transfer taking over day to day financial transactions but my parents still prefer the manual process.

I saw how from the vegetable vendors to big shops everyone was using these and at the same time I went to bank with my dad to update his passbook.

It reminded me the conversation my 12 year old nephew had with my mom. My parents were leaving for our home town and that morning he repeated the usual instructions to my mom about her WhatsApp call, Youtube , how to send pictures and forward messages, how to disconnect the call and make sure it was disconnected, what to do when wifi doesn’t work.

This is a very fond memory I have of that morning. My parents are really fortunate that their grandkids are their technology teachers but how many of old people live on their own and struggle with these day to day issues.

Everyone has a smart phone but how many of them understand the situation they are in. Anyone can call them and ask for their OTP and pin and hack their bank account. More so when they are living on their own and don’t have anyone explaining things in these situations .

Has it happened to you? A spam call? A fraud letter ( we received one - saying we have an outstanding loan, I ended up calling them and the person was trying to trick me into giving my SSN)? Have you ever had a conversation with your parents about this?