Dear LPG readers, 

My children bought me one of those annoying little gadgets that sits on your worktop or sideboard and substitutes as a personal assistant.  Mine happened to be an Alexa and I accepted it gracefully with a quiet resolve to never use it.  

Although not quite so many these days, I suspect that most over 65-year-olds know at least one person who is still not a fan.  We hear stories about how intrusive they are, and I have always thought that there is something quite disturbing about sharing your house with a little box that you can talk to.  Not because of its ability to speak to me and watch me, but because we don’t really know how much they can hear and record, which has a way of stopping me from feeling ‘at home’ when I am ‘at home’, if you know what I mean.   

I would have left it in the box but it was presented to me as a birthday gift five years ago.  I know that my children were a lot more excited about giving it to me than I was to receive it and it had a pretty negative effect on the rest of the day’s events too.  What started out as one of those rare family get-togethers completely changed track as soon as the gadget escaped its box.   Knowing that I would not have a clue about how to set it up, that particular birthday party turned into a workshop and instruction session with all three of them telling me about all the ways it was going to help me.  Even my grandchildren got in on the act. 

And there it stood for at least two years while I did my best to ignore it.  During those initial months, it would sprout the sound of one of their voices without any warning. I do have to admit that it was nice to talk to my young grandchildren when they used it for more frequent ‘Hello Grandma’ sessions before and after school.  It was all a little disconcerting at first but I got used to those interruptions after a while.   

A couple of years later, my children decided I needed another one.  They replaced the audio-only device that they got me for my living room with an all-seeing and hearing model while the original audio one was relegated to my bedroom.   

I suppose that you cannot be on your Ps and Qs all the time and, in the same way that all those reality television programmes start with the celebrities being on their best behaviour, the facade soon ends up succumbing to the ‘real you’ in the end.    I have learned to live as if it isn’t really there unless I want to use it. 

Every time they came, my children would teach me another Alexa-trick.  I can now turn the lights and television on without even getting out of my chair and it wakes me up with soothing music every morning.  I gradually learned to ask it about the weather and what time it is and they set it up so that it reminds me when to take my medication and, on the days that I need to go to the doctors or dentist, they have got it reminding me about that too.    

But the most important lesson I learned was only supposed to be a precautionary one.  One of my sons controls it from his phone no matter where he is and he is always telling me that if ever I need to call him, all I have to do is instruct Alexa to, ’Call my phone’.  I have to say that I found the instruction a little odd until he explained that because his phone was controlling it, as far as it is concerned ‘My phone’ means his phone.  

Not so long ago I was at my home alone and I missed my footing and found myself on the floor.  I was lucky because there were no broken bones but I just could not get up.  I spent a bit of time down there feeling sorry for myself because I could see both my mobile phone and landline side by side on the table but I could not reach them.    It took me a little time to remember that  ‘Alexa, Call my phone’ instruction but I did and, in spite of the fact that I didn’t expect any visitors that day, my son organised everything.  He does live and work locally and I was up on my feet again a lot more quickly than I might have been but for that annoying machine.  

You hear about older people who fall and spend ages on the floor, unable to move until they are discovered sometimes days later, and I could well have been one of them but for that annoying machine. 

I think that the moral of my message is this.  If you are one of those people who continually forgets to keep your Mobile phone with you in spite of all the warnings and tellings-off that your children provide, and you have a Digital Personal Assistant.  Even if you are not interested in all the other wonderful things it is capable of, please learn what it can do for you in an emergency!  

AY, Lee  

 

 

There are many ways that digital virtual assistants can help in crisis but LPG could only find one bit of advice.  Perhaps it might be more important to advise readers to get their family members to work out a simple voice command that might help if your voice is the only communication device to hand…

 

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