It seems almost impossible for adults to get by without a smartphone in our day and age. However, many older people don’t know how to use the smartphones that they have, which can put them at a huge disadvantage in many areas of their life.
If this sounds like an elderly loved one that you have, consider taking it upon yourself to help them learn more about this incredible technology they have access to. To help you in doing this, here are three things to teach your elderly loved one about using their smartphone.
Help Make Their Phone More Functional For Them
As a standard, most smartphones come from the factory with settings that don’t necessarily lend themselves to being functional for many seniors. With the text that is too small and assumptions made about how the setup of the device will go, many older people find themselves at a loss for how to use their devices and get them to work for them.
With this in mind, you should first seek to make your elderly loved one’s device functional for them in a very practical sense. If they complain about not being able to hear things, not being able to connect to other devices that they should be able to connect to, not being able to read the screen, and more, take the time to change the settings for them so that their smartphone is actually usable.
How To Avoid Getting Scammed
Now that everyone has a smartphone, scammers have learned how to use this to their advantage as a way to trick people, especially older people who may not know about the latest trends in scammers. So if you’re worried about this for your elderly loved one, consider teaching them how to avoid getting scammed out of their hard-earned money that should be going toward paying their bills in their senior living community.
As a good rule of thumb, you should advise your loved one not to answer calls from numbers they don’t recognize, not to click on links sent in texts from people they don’t know, and to not store sensitive information so that it can be automatically accessed from their phone.
Helpful Apps To Use
There are so many apps available that could make life easier for your elderly loved one—if they only knew what they were and how to use them. This is where you come in.
When helping your loved one get to know their phone, find out what apps you can delete off their phone to make things simpler and more streamlined. Additionally, if they don’t have or know of apps that you think they might enjoy, like apps that allow for video chatting with friends and family or games that you know they like to play, consider putting those apps on their smartphone in easy-to-remember places.
If you’ve been wanting to teach your elderly loved one how to put their smartphone to better use, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you in doing this.
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