Mobiles for the old and baffled.

My Mum has been bugging me to write this for ages. She’s a “normob”, at the lowest level; she’s had her current mobile for around seven months now, and she still doesn’t know half of the features available to her. She can’t navigate too well, and she finds anything with buttons highly confusing (she can’t even use the TV remote that we’ve had for four or more years!).

My Mum wants a mobile that put simply is idiot proof; but at the same time, she wants to maintain a look on a phone that doesn’t necessarily make it obvious that it is a simple mobile. She wants a camera (although she barely uses it), she doesn’t want a music player, and she wants nice big buttons so she can text me even more. Most importantly, she wants to get rid of all of the “crap” that she has no need for; which is everything other than the phonebook, messaging, and the camera. She doesn’t know how to use it, and she, has absolutely no need for it.

I’ve also been informed that a mobile phone should be made for my Grandparents too. My Grandma for instance, we’re out shopping, her mobile rings, and I’m telling her that her phone is ringing and she’s none-the-wiser. This all said, but it’s on the highest volume setting. Then when it comes to reading text messages! You would have thought from the amount of time it took, that she was reading a short novel.

Once again, my Grandparents use their mobile for two functions, sending and reading the occasional text, and phoning up people. They can barely see the screen, find the buttons too hard to navigate, and if you’re my Grandad, forget you even have it and walk into the sea with it in your back pocket.

These are some pretty basic and probably average examples of people you may know that have absolutely no clue what to do with their phone. And this is a particular problem for the very young (who shouldn’t have mobiles in the first place) and the elderly; or in my Mum’s case, the baffled. These groups of people all want a mobile which has a good look, so it doesn’t look out of place when they are out socialising; they all want practicality mainly over features, and they don’t want to feel intimidated by their handsets.

I know this has been said before, and I know that in Germany due to their increasing numbers of elderly people, a lot of money is being invested into simplified technology and devices. A similar aging of society is also happening here in the UK, and according to National Statistics, the number of young people are in decline, whilst the number of older people are increasing.

The elderly do have mobiles that are especially designed for them, I came across a company website called Matomobile, who specialise in selling mobiles for the elderly or disabled. The problem is, what about the segment of the population who don’t have access to the internet? Or, who like myself, don’t like buying online, and maybe for the self conscious, the style? These devices should be made available in the big retailers, not just because it’s kind to the elderly, but also because it’s a massive market.

But what about the baffled “normobs” like my Mum? She doesn’t want to resort to a clapped out old Nokia, or any of that. She still wants to maintain an element of style; she wants a mobile that is small, stylish, full of features useful for someone who can’t stand technology, and readily available on the high street. And there are no such mobiles, I know, I’ve looked for her. She loves her Sony W810i, but she has hardly any use for the majority of the inbuilt features, let alone the possibilities of downloadable applications.

I would have thought this is common sense. Not everyone is able to comprehend the fast paced life of technology, and I would have thought more attention would be paid to the population age changes. I know of many people who are just plain confused my mobiles and technology, so much so that they daren’t use one. Imagine the money and possibilities to be had in that yet unreached market?

In some aspects, may I be so bold to say that the mobile industry is moving too fast?

If you have any ideas for features that either you, or relatives, friends or whomever, need or want for their mobiles, send them into samantha@smstextnews.com and I’ll compile a list of them and post them next week.