The world of internet is not merely delivering information. It wants every user to be a doer – by marketing its prominence in life. It wants us to bring about change in a human being, by making extensive use of it. In that sense a library book, for instance, is quite different than what we get from internet. Internet provides vision, knowledge, quick access to information. It attempts to become a part of the user rather than merely a machine run by chips and wires.
Education About The Internet
There are three things that we needed to fight illiteracy and ignorance. The first is education. The second is education. And the third is education. That may be true for most people using internet, but it’s not true for some of our parents. They need to change their mind and we need marketing them the usefulness of internet. How do we get our parent to be a user, to the internet that we can’t live without. How do we market it? And how do we make the plan work?
Ignore Internet Xenophobe and Skepticism – Instead Introduce Tools to Help Your parents
For Example: Pinterest for Visual Bookmarking
As the old saying goes – It’s much easier to sell the London Bridge than to give it away. Parents will never believe it if they are offered something for free. All we need to do is market even the most beneficial item on the internet. It is more of a matter of knowing your parents’ interests and looking from their point of view. You have to know what to market and when to market the idea. Something that can be transformed into a value for them. For example, if your mother is a cooking show fan, you will be marketing what websites are available on the internet that provide the best recipes in the world. That’s again a practical information, and to sell this kind of practical information is different from selling an abstract philosophy.
Alerts For Shopping Deals and Groupons
And then, the second rule, know your parents wardrobe. Practically every parent wants to wear something new once in a while or during special occasions. When you look at the various websites online, that also have their presence in your local area, but offer great deals and discounts or free shipping, let them know. The local store doesn’t have to put the new latest tuxedo on the shelf, and certainly not in a place where your parent will see it. Unless your parent wants it, they will have no sale.
Mobile Phone Apps for More Than Just Phoning: Personal Management
Not so long, people made many trips to banks and financial institutions for money transaction. Another reason why the internet is becoming more popular is because management of personal finance is becoming more easier. It used to be that people stood in line waiting for their turn to be served. That doesn’t happen anymore. Not only is transaction through online banking websites less expensive, but usage of them have gone up out of sight. And unfortunately, there are so many fewer of those who don’t use internet for this purpose, your parent being one of them. What can be a better way than acknowledging them this fact.
…And News Feeds Connectivity
When we live in a place frequented with natural hazards or extreme climate conditions, there will always be need for learning more through online live news channels. Internet is a great way to sit along with your parent and anticipate or learn more about such survival situations. It allows you to deal with emergency much faster than other types of media do.
In Conclusion
Training your parents is a long drawn out process, but the payoff is worth the expense. Hopefully with what modern careers do in terms of putting physical distance between us, we can close that gap with helping them onboard the internet. Maybe a hidden goal is give them the tools to take better care of themselves by allowing more routes of communication to the outside world while you’re not there.
Ultimately this is about making yourself more comfortable in the online world, knowing that your parents are more at ease with it. …Maybe, just maybe you can go to the ultimate progression and get them a website built to focus their own goals. OK that might seem a bit extreme for now. But incase the insanity overcomes yourself, I suggest visiting the latest webhosting prices here to get the ball rolling.
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License: Creative Commons image source
About The Author
@JulianaPayson is a Community Manager at Steady Demand Media, focusing on outreach and content curation to network online businesses into natural client attraction and audience development. If you found this article helpful please give some props on her Google Plus Profile, or place a comment where she’ll be happy to introduce you to further ideas!
This is a guest post.
