That Time I Tried to Set Up Video Calls for My Parents and It Was a Whole Thing

Okay, so my parents, they’re pretty old school, you know? And with all this talk about remote work and staying connected, I figured, why not get them set up with some kind of video calling thing? My mom was complaining about not seeing her grandkids enough, and my dad, well, he just likes to tinker. So, I thought, ‘Easy peasy, right? Just download an app, show them how to click a button, and boom, they’re having virtual tea parties.’

The App Hunt Begins

First, I had to figure out what app to even use. My dad’s got a tablet that’s probably older than some of my friends, and my mom has a smartphone she mostly uses for Angry Birds and calling me. I thought about KakaoTalk because everyone in Korea uses it, but my parents are mostly in the US, so that’s out. Then I thought, maybe Skype? It’s classic. Or Zoom, because everyone talks about Zoom meetings these days. I ended up downloading Zoom on their tablets. It seemed straightforward enough, and it’s what a lot of businesses use, so it felt… official, I guess.

Initial Setup Woes

Getting it installed was the first hurdle. My dad’s tablet, bless its heart, kept saying it didn’t have enough storage. So, we spent like, an hour deleting old photos and apps that haven’t been opened since 2017. Then, when I tried to create an account for them, it asked for their email addresses. My mom’s email is something like [email protected], and my dad’s is just his name, [email protected]. It took forever for them to type those in without typos. I swear, watching them type on a touchscreen is like watching someone trying to thread a needle with boxing gloves on.

The First ‘Meeting’

So, account created, app installed. Now for the actual call. I told them, ‘Just open the Zoom app, and I’ll send you a meeting link.’ My dad opens it, sees a bunch of buttons, and immediately clicks on ‘New Meeting.’ Of course, he’s now in a meeting by himself. My mom, meanwhile, is trying to find the Angry Birds app and is completely ignoring the Zoom icon I put right in the center of the screen. After about ten minutes of me trying to guide them verbally over the phone (which, ironically, they answered by calling me on my actual phone), I managed to get them both into a call… with each other. They were just staring at their own screens, not realizing they were supposed to be looking at each other.

A Glimpse of Hope, Then… More Chaos

Eventually, we got them connected. My mom looked so happy to see my dad, even if it was just on a screen. My dad was more interested in whether the little camera thingy was working. They managed to have a five-minute conversation, mostly about what they ate for lunch. Then my dad, trying to be helpful, accidentally muted himself. He spent the next five minutes frantically tapping his screen, making faces at the tablet, trying to unmute. My mom didn’t even notice. It was… a moment. I thought, ‘Okay, this is the future, but it’s a very, very slow-moving, button-mashing future.’

What Did I Even Learn?

Honestly, I’m not sure if this is going to stick. Setting it up felt like a major operation. I can only imagine the recurring troubleshooting requests. They complained about the video quality looking a bit blurry, and my dad asked if there was a way to make the screen bigger without him having to pinch and zoom constantly. I guess for people who aren’t glued to screens all day, these interfaces are just not intuitive. Maybe a simpler app, or just sticking to phone calls, is better for them. Or maybe I should have just used KakaoTalk while they were visiting last summer and pre-set it all up. It probably would have taken less time and fewer expletives. For now, they’ve got the app, they know it can work, but the actual daily use? That remains to be seen. It cost me about an hour of my Saturday and a lot of deep breaths.