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3 Things You Can Teach Your Elderly Loved One About Using Social Media

If you have an elderly loved one who’s interested in learning how to use social media, there are a few things that you may want to teach them before you just turn them loose on this new platform. With a little guidance, your elderly loved one may find it easier to use this technology to their advantage rather than having it take over their lives or make things more contentious for them.

To help you see how this can be done, here are three things you can teach your elderly loved one about using social media. 

How To Share Content With Others

One of the most enjoyable things about using social media is finding interesting content and sharing it with others. But if they don’t have experience with other social media platforms, your elderly loved one may not know how to share content either to people individually or on their own profile. 

While this might seem like an easy task for you to complete, tagging people doesn’t come naturally to people of an older generation. So if you can share with your elderly loved one how they can tag their friends in their assisted living community or share something in a direct message with someone, they’ll find this guidance very helpful. 

How To Find Information They’re Looking For

Social media can also be used to find all kinds of information. But if your elderly loved ones don’t know what you can find on these platforms or how to best perform a search, this feature can be wasted on them. 

To help them with this, share with them that they can search for things like people and businesses on these platforms, but they can also search for topics and groups that they might be interested in. This way, they can find anything they might be looking for through the search function of their chosen social media platform. 

It’s Okay To Just Explore

While you may not want to encourage your elderly loved one to spend hours and hours on social media each day to the extent that other things in their life get neglected, it can be fun for people of all ages to just explore different social media apps and see what interesting things they can find.

If your elderly loved one doesn’t know how to navigate around the apps they’re using, showing them how to easily do this can help them to just explore whatever content they can find and have some enjoyment in their life feeling connected to people all over the world.

If your elderly loved one doesn’t know the ins and outs of the social media platforms that they’re using, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you teach them some tips and tricks they can use. 

How Should Seniors Approach Withdrawing Funds in Retirement?

Getting ready for retirement isn’t just about stashing away cash. It’s also figuring out the smartest way to use that money later on. For older people, juggling finances in their golden years can be tough, as can healthcare bills, daily living expenses, and maybe even the costs of assisted living communities.

Having a game plan for how to take out those funds is key. This strategy helps make sure there’s enough dough left over during all of retirement while still covering basic needs.

Understand Your Retirement Income Sources

To pull out funds in a smart way, it’s crucial to know all the retirement income sources. These could be Social Security benefits or pension plans. Maybe even money from 401(k)s or IRAs.

Knowing where every penny is coming from helps plan how much to take out each year without running dry too fast. It’s also key not to forget about extra cash flow, such as rent payments received or earnings from part-time jobs, which can help cover surprise costs that pop up.

Determine a Sustainable Withdrawal Rate

Pulling out funds at a rate that keeps the retirement pot full is key. Money gurus often suggest taking about 4% per year as a basic rule of thumb. This percentage tries to keep up with regular income needs while also keeping some cash in reserve.

But this perfect balance can change based on personal situations like health status, lifestyle choices, or even how well the stock market’s doing! Older people might need to tweak this number depending on what they require and should chat with their financial advisor for advice tailored just right.

Consider Tax Implications

Taxes are a big deal when planning for retirement. Different accounts get taxed in different ways, so it’s important to know the details to keep tax bills low. For example, pulling money from traditional IRAs and 401(k)s gets counted as regular income on taxes, while Roth IRA withdrawals usually don’t have any tax at all!

Planning these withdrawals strategically can help cut down total taxes owed. Older people might decide to take out funds from taxable accounts first and leave those with deferred-tax benefits till later, but that depends entirely on their personal situation and what they’re aiming for.

Prepare for Unexpected Expenses

Surprise costs like sudden medical bills or urgent repairs can take a big bite out of retirement savings. It’s crucial to be ready for these curveballs by having an emergency fund or keeping some of the retirement money in easy-to-access assets.

This way, there’s always cash on hand if unexpected expenses pop up, so there’s no need to touch long-term investments and risk early withdrawal penalties! Plus, thinking about things like long-term care insurance could offer extra financial safety against hefty charges.

Conclusion

Pulling out retirement funds needs a lot of thought and planning. It’s important to consider things like where the income is coming from, how fast it’s being used up, what taxes will be owed, and any surprise costs that might come along.

By staying on top of their money situation with smart strategies, older people can have a more secure and comfy retirement life. Whether they’re living solo or in senior housing communities, having a solid plan for using those savings makes sure there’s enough cash left over for all their golden years.

3 Facebook Tips for Seniors

Today, staying connected with your friends and family is easier than ever thanks to social media platforms. Facebook, in particular, is a favorite since it’s so easy to navigate, and there are so many people signed up. 

The best part about Facebook is that it can be used for personal purposes as well as marketing. Not to mention, it can be a great source of entertainment thanks to fun pages to follow and game plugins. However, Facebook comes with a learning curve. 

If you’ve never used Facebook much before, then it’s important you know the ropes before you dive in. People over the age of 70 who didn’t grow up with social media may find it especially tricky to catch on to certain dos and don’ts. To help you, here are some of the best tips for navigating Facebook as a senior citizen.

Prioritize Safety

Safety should be a top concern on social media. First of all, ideally, you should make sure that your page is private. This will ensure that only your friends and chosen audience can see what you post about. This is important for a few different reasons. For one, the photos that you post or status updates may contain personal and private information. 

Someone could even go as far as zooming into your photos and finding your address! Not to mention, you don’t necessarily need everybody to know your life’s personal details. 

Social media can be a wonderful tool for sharing and expressing yourself, however, remember, not everybody gets a backstage pass to your life. Be selective about who you share with.

Above all, make sure that you never share any information like your social security number or date of birth.  These kinds of details can help someone steal your identity and ultimately get you into a considerable amount of trouble

Join Groups

One of the best aspects of Facebook is that there are plenty of subgroups you can join. These cover a wide variety of interests and purposes and can be a great way to connect with others who share the same values and passions. Following and joining groups of interest isn’t just great for connecting with others, but it can also be educational and help you stay updated on the topics you care about most.

Take Advantage of Messenger

If there’s one thing that has dramatically changed for the last few years since seniors were kids it’s the price of international calling. Once upon a time, it cost a small fortune to call someone overseas, whereas now, you can call someone for free and on a video call thanks to Facebook Messenger. Take advantage of this feature and call everyone from your friends to grandchildren.

3 Tips For Helping Someone Spot Misleading News Stories

Unfortunately, you can’t always trust everything that you see online or hear on the news. Because in many cases, people can benefit from you believing and taking action on certain things, regardless of whether those things are true or not. So to help ensure that you’re not taken advantage of in this way, it’s important that you learn how to spot disinformation and teach those you care about to spot these things too. This way, your elderly loved ones won’t wind up spending their rent for their senior living community on causes that they shouldn’t or propagating ideas that aren’t factual.

To help you with this goal, here are three tips for helping someone spot misleading news stories. 

Look For The Sources Of Information

When you read something posted online, one of the first things that you can do to see if it’s trustworthy information is to check out what the sources of the information are. 

In most cases, if the sources of the information are very apparent and are from people or organizations that you know are trustworthy, that information has a greater chance of being trustworthy. But if the claims that you’re seeing are being made by people you don’t know and can’t confirm are trustworthy, you may want to think twice about believing the information that’s being presented to you. 

Learn To Spot Bias

Bias is another thing that you should keep an eye out for if you’re wanting to spot information that may not be accurate or fair. 

In most cases, people show their bias when they allow their own beliefs to affect their judgment of people or things. They then aren’t able to look at the whole picture and encourage others to do the same. So if you feel like something you’re reading is being oversimplified or isn’t taking everything into consideration, there could be bias that’s causing this. And when someone is biased, their take on a topic can’t necessarily be trusted and could be misleading. 

Do You Trust Who’s Sharing The Information?

Aside from who created this content in the first place, you should also ask yourself if the people that you’re getting this information from or who are sharing it with others are people that you trust to be truthful and well-informed about the topic of discussion. 

Some people tend to be more prone to believing things at face value. So when these people share sensationalized information, you may want to begin taking what they’re sharing with a grain of salt until you’re able to corroborate what’s being claimed

If you want to be able to spot misleading news stories and help others to do the same, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you develop this skill. 

What Makes an Android App Ideal for a Senior’s Needs?

In today’s digital world, Android apps aren’t just for the young. They’re especially valuable in assisted living communities where residents need comfort and ease in their daily tasks. The importance of developing apps suited to older people’s unique needs cannot be stressed enough. 

These tailored tech solutions can improve not only how they use technology but also enhance their day-to-day lives overall. So, let’s explore what exactly makes an Android app perfect for seniors’ specific requirements.

User-Friendly Interface

Are you creating Android apps for seniors? The top priority should be a simple, easy-to-use interface. Designing with user ease in mind can help overcome issues like memory or sight problems. Large buttons and clear menus are key to making the app senior-friendly.

Don’t forget about the text too! It needs to be clearly legible, so make sure fonts are easy on the eyes. Plus, adding voice command and sound feedback features will simplify usage further, which is great news for people of all tech levels.

Finally, don’t overlook options that let users tweak text size and contrast as per their comfort level. It’s crucial in ensuring visual accessibility.

Personalized Content and Features

Just like everyone else, older folks have different hobbies and needs. They need an app that’s tailored to their likes and dislikes. This could be anything from news articles or fun things on the entertainment side to personalized chat platforms.

It would also help if this app had health features built in, too, like reminders about taking medicine or even a way for them to talk with their doctor online. It should make sure these crucial services are easy to use when they’re needed most.

To top it off, why not let family members take control remotely? That could add another layer of safety while making the whole thing more helpful overall.

Security and Privacy Assurance

All users worry about security and privacy when using apps. For seniors, this can be an especially big deal since understanding all the digital safety stuff isn’t always easy.

The perfect app for them should have top-notch security built in. It shouldn’t feel like a maze to change your settings, either. Clear information on how their data is used would also help put minds at rest. Easy-to-reach customer support helps even more with that feeling of being safe online.

Lastly, don’t forget some high-tech measures. Multi-step login processes, safely encrypted personal info, and regular updates against possible threats are crucial.

Offline Functionality and Low Bandwidth Usage

Not all seniors have speedy internet. So, an app for them needs to work great offline, too, and not just eat up a lot of data when they’re online. It’s important that the key features can be used without any connection at all. If they are connected, even slow speeds shouldn’t hold back their experience. No one wants annoying load times or connectivity issues!

Plus, it’s worth remembering some folks might only have limited amounts of data available. An ideal app should go easy on using this up so everyone is able to enjoy what it offers without breaking the bank.

Conclusion

To wrap things up, Android apps for seniors need to be easy to use, personalized, safe, and always available. These are the ingredients that will make an app really work well for them.

By focusing on these key points, we can create digital tools they’ll love using day-in-day-out! This could just bridge the gap between vital services and tech-friendly solutions perfect for our older generation.

3 Ways To Help Your Elderly Loved Ones Stay Informed About World And Local Affairs

For some people, keeping up with what’s going on around the world is a hobby of theirs. But as people tend to get older, they often have a harder and harder time staying current with what’s going on both in their own city and in the world at large. Especially if you have elderly loved ones that are living in senior living facilities, they might be so insulated from the outside world that they don’t know how to get information or how to tell if the information they’re getting is correct.

To help with these issues, here are three ways to help your elderly loved one stay informed about world and local affairs. 

Show Them Where To Get Quality Information

The first thing that you should do if you have an elderly loved one that’s struggling to keep up-to-date with what’s going on around the world is to show them where they can get quality information. 

If they still pay for television, there are news channels that they can watch. Additionally, local news is a great way to get information about what’s going on in their own town. You can also save some websites on their computer or other devices so that they can get information from other sources. Just try to make sure that you’re directly your elderly loved one toward news platforms that will give them balanced information that’s relevant to them and their life. 

Teach Them How To Spot Misinformation

One thing that everyone needs more practice with is being able to spot misinformation when it’s being shared. This type of information is most often shared from very partisan news platforms or from people online who haven’t vetted information before sharing it on their own profiles. 

Something you can do to help your elderly loved ones spot misinformation is to show them websites that specialize in fact-checking. They can put a statistic or article into fact-checking websites to see if what they’re reading is accurate or not. So if anything seems suspicious at all, it’s best to check to see if it’s even true. 

Help Them Hear From Multiple Points Of View

For many people, it can be easy to just listen to one voice to get their news. But when this happens, any bias that that news outlet has can get passed down. So to help your elderly loved ones learn to think for themselves, you should encourage them to hear from multiple viewpoints when getting their news. This could mean following both conservative and progressive platforms or seeking out non-partisan news that allows them to draw their own conclusions. 

If you’re wanting to help your elderly loved one stay informed about the news, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you learn how this can be done.

Things that an SEO expert can do

An SEO consultant could potentially help or not a website by engaging in several of the following practises:

Black hat search engine optimization (SEO) refers to strategies that violate search engines’ guidelines for how results should be shown. Keyword stuffing, cloaking, and link schemes are just a few of the black hat SEO practises that can have a website removed entirely from search results.

Purchase or sale of links with the intent to manipulate search engine rankings is considered “paid linking” and can result in a penalty or exclusion from search engines.

If an SEO consultant doesn’t follow industry standards and best practises, they may actually hurt the website’s performance instead of helping it.

If an SEO expert guarantees or promises outcomes that are impossible to obtain, they are likely engaging in unethical practises.

Lack of communication: An SEO consultant who has trouble getting out to their clients or who doesn’t keep them updated on their progress may be falling short of their clients’ expectations.

If you want your website to do as well as it can, you need to hire an SEO consultant that is honest, trustworthy, and knowledgeable.

 

What you should not do in SEO?

Several SEO practises should be avoided at all costs to maintain high search engine rankings for your site.

Avoid using black hat techniques, which are strategies for improving search engine rankings that go against the terms of service of the relevant search engines. Keyword stuffing, cloaking, and link schemes are just a few of the black hat SEO practices that can have a website removed entirely from search results.

Don’t buy or trade links to manipulate search engine rankings; doing so is against search engines’ terms of service and can lead to a ban or punishment.

The search engine rankings and overall performance of a website might suffer if best practises and industry standards are disregarded.

Avoid making assurances or promises you can’t keep: Falsely promising or guaranteeing certain levels of traffic or sales growth through SEO is unethical and likely to disappoint.

Avoid keyword stuffing, which is a black hat strategy used to artificially boost a website’s search engine ranks through excessive usage of targeted terms. Key phrases should be used organically and in a way that is helpful to users.

Avoid prioritising search engines over human visitors; doing so can hurt your site’s rankings and credibility. Designing a website that is user- and search engine-friendly is crucial.

As a whole, the finest SEO strategies are those that take a long-term, ethical, and user-focused perspective.

Sources:

https://www.find-us-here.com/businesses/SEO-Services-UK-Paul-Hoda-London-London-E-United-Kingdom/33284501/

https://teleadreson.com/seo-services-uk-paul-hoda,kemp-house,-152-160-city-road,-london,-england,-ec1v-2nx-DyeLAA8niwA.html

3 Things To Teach Your Elderly Loved One About Using Their Smartphone

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. 

The polarization encouraged far-right forces to riot in the midterm elections

Think continues working in the documentation for his next project, which will be related to the polarization of American society and the resurgence of anfar-right mentality. This new phenomenon is also spreading to other countries of the world. All the information is being achieved by talking with the protagonists of the news and experts who independently share their vision.

One of the most difficult and complex chapters to be portrayed objectively, was the incident of January 6, 2021, when the White House was stormed by far-right Trump supporters, such as the Proud Boys, which are being called to testify.

Members of the House Freedom Caucus helped plan Trump’s attempt to overturn the election.  They attended a meeting at the White House on Dec. 21, 2020 in which, at least, 11 lawmakers discussed efforts to spill the election resultsand helped spread false information, according to testimony and records obtained by the committee.

And one of the groups that drove this effort is the Falun Gong sect, related with The Epoch Times.Falun Gong, a religious movement embroiled in a decades-long conflict with the Chinese government, has become a political asset in the Trump era due to its long-standing propagation of communist conspiracy theories.

At the time, reputable media such as The New York Times has reported that The Epoch Times used fake accounts to campaign for Trump during the 2016 election through its company Beautiful Life. Moreover, after they spent about $11 million on Facebook ads in 2019, the platform banned them for violating rules on political advertising transparency.

In April, at the height of its ad spending, videos from Epoch Media Group counted about 3 billion views on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, ranking 11th among all video creators across all platforms and outpacing all other traditional news publishers, according to data from social media analytics firm Tubular.

This engagement made The Epoch Times one of the favorites for the Trump family and a key component of the president’s re-election campaign. According to the Washington Post, reporters at The Epoch Times have received special access from the Trump administration: One America News and The Epoch Times were among the only media outlets with access to Georgia’s voting audience in the 2020 election.

Once thevote counts were published, the website questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election (neither journalists nor Trump’s legal team have uncovered credible evidence of widespread voter fraud). They also peddle a number of conspiracy theories as the one they supported in 2018 with the“full rundown” of Spygatethat claims an Obama’s administration spy attempted to thwart Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

There was great concern in The Epoch Times when Biden finally won the 2020 election. At the same time, to avoid trouble with Democrats over their earlier smear campaign against President Biden, Epoch Times executives decided at one point that they should keep a low profile internally and “drop the close relationship with Trump.”

The truth is, however, that January 6, 2021 gave the Epoch Times another chance.

Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of Media Matters for America, said that by exploiting the deep partisan polarization in U.S. politics and the long anti-Communist tradition of the American right, these media outlets, led by Epoch Times, have sought to link Biden and the Democratic Party to radical left-wing movements like Antifa.

Epoch Times pointed to a strong contender in the Democratic Party,an opportunistic rehash of existing conspiracy narratives – was characteristic of these outlets. “They’re not drivers, they’re not weaving new conspiracy theories, they’re amplifying what’s already out there,” Carusone said.

While the Proud Boys and QAnon have been punished by law, the Epoch Times remains at large. With the 2022 midterm elections in full swing, Carusone said, the intensification of conspiratorial messages in the Epoch Times’ output and its embrace of Trumpism could make them even more damaging to the United States.

Despite being banned from Facebook and unable to place many ads on the platform, The Epoch Times did not give up on other platforms and actively published hundreds of articles about the midterm elections on its website, including dozens of articles about Trump’s “high” approval rating (regardless of the actual situation).

In fact, in addition to obfuscating the midterm elections to attract Republicans for patronage, The Epoch Times and Falun Gong behind it appear to be undermining the American situation in even more egregious ways by opposing abortion and condemning homosexuality and feminism.

Media Contact:

Ángel Tapia

Hello Think

angel@hellothink.es

3 Ways to Avoid Fake News

Keeping up with the news is essential for a variety of reasons- such as knowing what’s happening in your community, and staying up to date on current events and developments from around the world to be able to make informed decisions. However, in an era of “fake news” and misinformation, it’s more important than ever to verify the accuracy of what you’re reading, watching, or listening to. 

Here are three ways that you can do just that.

Always Check the Source 

There are credible news sources, and there are news sources whose reporting should be taken with a grain of salt.

A credible news source is one that has a history of accurate reporting. These sources typically have a team of fact checkers who verify the accuracy of everything before it is published. Additionally, credible news sources will often include links to primary sources in their articles- allowing readers to check the information for themselves. 

Some examples of credible news sources include the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, and BBC News.

On the other hand, there are news sources whose reporting is often inaccurate and exaggerated. These sources tend to be less reliable, and their articles should always be verified with other sources before being believed. 

Look for Multiple Perspectives

The news should be an unbiased report of just the facts. However, sometimes reporters allow their personal biases to color their writing. To get a well-rounded view of any given story, it’s important to look for multiple perspectives. 

For example, if you’re reading an article about recent politics in senior living facilities, try to find an article on the same topic from a news source with different political leanings. This will help you to get the real story. 

You can find other reports of the news with a simple Google search. Just type in the keyword of what you’re looking for, and then scroll to the “News” section on the search results page.

Be Wary of Clickbait Headlines

To get people to click on their articles, some news sources use headlines that are deliberately misleading or exaggerated. These headlines are often called “clickbait.”

For example, a clickbait headline might say “You Won’t Believe What Happened Next!” or “All The Celebrities Are Doing This!” When you see headlines like this, be careful. The article is likely to be full of fluff, and it probably won’t give you the information that you’re looking for.

Instead, look for headlines that are clear and to the point. A good headline will give you a general idea of what the article is about, without being too vague or too specific.

The news is very important to stay updated in the world, but you should always take into consideration the credibility of the sources, look for multiple perspectives, and beware of clickbait headlines. By following these steps, you can be sure that you’re getting accurate and reliable information.