One other difficult problem I find with my parents, and with others of a similar age, is trying to persuade them to experiment with using their computer. They o

One other difficult problem I find with my parents, and with others of a similar age, is trying to persuade them to experiment with using their computer. They often find some convoluted way of doing something and stick with it. For example, for a long time my Mum would return to google's homepage by quitting and restarting firefox. I had to explain how the home & back buttons worked several times. My parents were afraid to even try pressing unfamiliar icons in a program (or even realise that they were buttons that could be pressed). Again, it's not stupidity, but just uncertainty and their fear of breaking the computer if they do the wrong thing. Giving a tablet as a present for my parents was a big help here. The biggest ease of use has been that I have persuaded them that there is just about nothing that they can accidentally break on it, and if they ever reach something confusing, then pressing the only button on the front will always take them back to a recognisable place.