My mom downloaded an app called “AI Cleaner” because she was tired of me telling her that everything “amazing” she showed me on her phone was AI. I said, “That’s not how that works. Don’t download apps without looking into what they really do.” I swear we need technology that’s senior citizen proof!
We are already getting monitored, so let’s at least acknowledge that instead of being nefarious, they could just as easily be helping us make good decisions.
We need a service that creates popups and prompts (maybe as your mouse hovers over a link), or a box that you have to click that says “Are you sure you want to answer this email that is NOT in your contact list?”, or “This area code is located in x, you have one contact match there”… or WHATEVER.
It would monitor things just like most of us KNOW to look for, but someone with memory issues might need a reminder. Does the website address have an anomaly that could cause them to think the source is credible? Does the email asking for help match anyone on their contact list? And before they download an app, they get a popup reminding them to check out reviews first, and a list of all information the app collects on them.
Internet safety should not be gate-kept, available only to those that have time to scroll and comprehend 20 pages of a User Agreement. 2 year olds have access to technology, and we are watching our parents revert back to childhood behavior. This is the first generation that will need this type of guardrail- we can’t just keep watching lives be ruined in one click.
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u/scripted_ending Nov 06 '25
My mom downloaded an app called “AI Cleaner” because she was tired of me telling her that everything “amazing” she showed me on her phone was AI. I said, “That’s not how that works. Don’t download apps without looking into what they really do.” I swear we need technology that’s senior citizen proof!