Email Your Mother

My 84-year-old mom is technology-resistant. Make that technology-phobic. Actually, make that technology-petrified.

Now retired from the position she held in my little office stuffing copies of my cartoons into envelopes for syndication until just a couple of years ago, she is happy and healthy, enjoying her own company in a cozy home on the west side. Mom still drives within her ever-narrowing comfort zone, but like many older folks her world seems to shrink a bit each year.

As my sibs and I exchange emails containing family news and photos, joking and jabbing in a near approximation of our banter around the dinner table forty years ago, I can't help but long for Mom's presence in the jabber. These little conversations would broaden her world again, not to mention allow her to be casually in touch with old friends who remain a daunting long-distance call away. But my brother, sisters and I have talked it over and we're sure the internet would totally flummox Mom, intimidating her from the corner of her spare bedroom with its cryptic commands, destabilizing her sense of peace.

Surely someone else has experienced this issue. Isn't there an email system out there designed for those Greatest Generation late-adopters who can't crawl under desks to reboot their internet connection or fathom the confusing language of computers? I know they aren't leading the way to new revenues for online providers, but they did save the world once for us. Could we design a simple email system that allows them to keep a foot in our world?