Digital Divide #SWDC

For fifteen years I have lived next door to a lovely older gentleman, a dentist who bought his house new in 1969. Our HOA has a yearly lottery for extra parking places, which he needs for his two Cadillacs (one brand new, one vintage.) This year they sent the notice by email, and he missed it, because he doesn’t have email!! He raised holy hell in the neighborhood but all the board did was publish an “email only” communication policy. So yesterday I went over to help.

I had no idea the lesson would begin with him saying, So how do I turn this thing on?

Fortunately I had done some research and pulled some articles. We started by setting up a Google account. “What is Google?? What do you mean by web address?” So we had to go over basic concepts and I encouraged him to ask any questions, because I could only guess at what he might find confusing. Right away I had to explain “captcha” and how you can type literally anything, ANYTHING into a search engine.

He was wide-eyed as a kid in a candy store. In that first session we went over types of Google searches, Wikipedia, and Yelp (since he’s a small businessman.) He was so excited, asking me to search a million things. Since he was so eager to get started, I repeated the instructions on navigation and went over privacy issues, then left him to play around with it. We didn’t even get to email, much less the basics of social media. (I did briefly mention the, um, naked ladies — odd that I haven’t heard from him today lol)

Several other older people in my neighborhood have asked for tips, but I had no idea the depth of the unfamiliarity. So I’m thinking about turning this into a whole training course, not necessarily for seniors, but for all digital non-natives. If anyone has stubborn parents or grandparents, I’ll be happy to share it with you. It’s not like I can turn it into a webinar or anything. And I’d love more feedback.

(We don’t have to tell your grandparents about the porn)