Is it even possible? Well, the jury is still out at our house which includes my 90 year old mother. Let me start by saying she hates her cell phone, is fearful she is going to break it and is convinced something is wrong with it because she can’t operate it. I keep telling her it’s not the phone it’s the operator which doesn’t seem to resonate. Several years ago we took the landline out of her house which we thought would force her to acclimate to her smart phone….NOT! Her kids and grandkids and pretty soon her great grandkids have all tried teaching her various functions but the lessons don’t seem to sink in and I think the challenge is resistance more than comprehension as her mind is a steel trap most of the time. Here are some of the things I have tried and/or am learning as I go about enhancing her cell phone literacy.
-Just because I have made info readily available doesn’t mean she will find it much less be able or willing to use it.
-Her ability to use information seems sporadic; sometimes she is quickly able to place a call or read a text and other times not so much. Yesterday, she unknowingly made a Facetime call to a large group of family members that my brother quickly circumvented (i.e. got her to end the call).
-Someone set up her voicemail to convert to written words which is probably a good thing given she can’t remember how to listen to them. Of course, she still needs to be able to return the calls which is not always happening. I moved her directory to a prominent place on her screen so maybe that will help if she can remember how to scroll.
-I think I have gotten through to her that the red dot with a number in it on the upper right side of the Phone, Email and Text buttons means she has new messages. It doesn’t help that her fingers are often numb and don’t work like they used to.
-I’ve noticed she gets easily confused on when to push and when to swipe with basic navigation; something most of us just take for granted.
-She can’t figure out what an app is but she is successfully using a handful of them. I have prominently installed apps I know she wants or likes which is helping her app use (WTM & Solitaire). It’s interesting that transferring a skill like manual hand use to finger swiping using an app, for example to play Solitaire, isn’t as intuitive as you’d think.
-I tried to help her learn how to use a simple puzzle app but I’m not sure that’s going to work because of her compromised finger swiping and having to navigate around the ads.
-I’m still not convinced she can successfully use her Google search engine to look things up which is a shame because she is very curious by nature and likes to learn new things.
-Finally, I have decided to skip the picture taking and sending function for now and I think she’d crump if I tried to teach her how to move the apps around on the screen. Heck, I can hardly do that successfully.
Anyway, we are all somewhere on the technology learning continuum and maybe she is doing better than most at the young fragile age of 90…swipe on Mom!