My parents never watched a single tutorial. Today they fly through tech like IT pros.

My parents never watched tutorials on how to write the best prompts, how much RAM a phone needs, or where to keep their data.
Yet they use a smartphone, a tablet and AI better than many computer science students.

It started when smartphones arrived. Even then I kept hearing the sentence that comes back with every new piece of tech:
“What do I need it for? I don't have time to learn yet another thing. I'd rather do it by hand, I like it. And what if this smartphone starts using my credit card on its own?”

At university, I moved abroad. And contact with my parents broke off.

To talk to them at all, there was the phone and the bills for international calls. Then Skype. Every call, something didn't work: we couldn't connect, my parents' devices were slow and kept freezing. And moving from Skype to WhatsApp was an expedition of its own.

In the end I said: enough. And I replaced everything, from the ground up.
Fast internet. Simple hardware, but the newest (the fastest possible). The same apps and shortcuts on every screen, everything logged in. The same operating system everywhere, for everyone. Everything on Wi-Fi, even the printer. Connected accounts, services and licences. All the details filled in everywhere, so the system wouldn't ask. And finally remote access, so I could see their screen and fix things, just in case.

The philosophy: as few steps as possible on my parents' side. They click, it has to fly in a millisecond.

It took a few years. And then it just happened: my parents started going into the settings themselves, they regularly upgrade their devices, and now they do things I never even thought of. They work through legal questions with a chatbot. They take a photo of the lights on the dishwasher and ask AI what they mean, instead of digging through the manual. They sell old things abroad on Vinted. Wondering where everyone is? Instead of calling, they look at the family map with its little icons. A big file to send? No “this way or that way”: there's one way. Photos of their son? All in the shared family library; they add their own and comment on every one. I could go on forever.

Only later did I understand what I had done, why, and what came of it.
I didn't have to explain to them how technology works. They had to be able to use it every day, without limits, at its best. I wasn't there, so I didn't explain what an operating system is, how much RAM you do or don't need, or why one account is better than another. I replaced things, and then we tested them together. Today I don't explain how to write prompts, and they manage on their own.

Instead, I made sure the hardware was flawlessly fast and responsive. I removed the smallest friction. A pointless pop-up? Settings changed so it never shows up again. An app used more and more? Onto the home screen. Updates? Automatic, so they don't even need to know something needs updating. Tablet running out of space? A week later they have twice as much.

Today my parents are opinion leaders on technology. They no longer say “what do I need it for?”. They say “install it here for me, I'll give it a try”.

I have a feeling this is a lesson not only about technology in the family. It's a lesson about bringing technology in, full stop, whether into a company or into someone's life. It's mostly about making technology work so fast that we stop wondering how it works. And that takes every layer at once: internet, fast hardware, intuitive and ultra-fast software, Wi-Fi in everything, keyboard shortcuts, and one person who knows the whole setup from A to Z.

That person was me: their saviour (“something's not working!”) and their tormentor (“are you changing something on us again?”), the family's IT handyman. Today they fly on their own and have become handymen themselves.

I'm in better touch with my parents today than ever. I call, we video chat, they comment on the photos I post, they see where I am and don't worry. They want to send me something… they send it.