Pathway to Aging in Place: High Tech
Smartphone and Tablet “101” When 75 year old Harold Baines was 11 years old, the transistor radio was invented. He remembers listening to baseball games with his friends while walking around the old neighborhood. When Mr. Baines was 37 years old, he traded in his transistor radio for a Sony Walkman® with a cassette player. It was about that same time that he heard of people having computers in their homes, but certainly not anybody he knew. In his early fifties, some of his friends and family members were starting to get home computers, but Mr. Baines didn’t see the need for such luxuries, and he didn’t know how they could improve his life. Mr. Baines continued working and providing for his wife after their two children moved away with families of their own. Mr. Baines retired at 72 years old and lost his wife that same year. He now lives alone in an NHP Foundation service-enriched, affordable housing community. Mr. Baines was delighted last Christmas when his daughter and his two grandchildren came to visit. As
a gift, Mr. Baines’ daughter gave him a smartphone and the grandchildren tried to teach him how to use it. However, once they left to return home, he put the phone in a drawer and eventually forgot how to turn it on. One day while walking through the lobby in his apartment building, Mr. Baines spotted a flyer that read, “Learn How To Use a Smartphone and Tablet.” The resident services coordinator had located a partner organization that would assist seniors in using smartphone technology. A week later, Mr. Baines dug his phone out of the drawer and showed up for class. In his very first session, he sent a text message to his granddaughter telling her that he was looking forward to seeing her on FaceTime, which he would learn about the following week. Since then, Mr. Baines has been keeping in touch with his family weekly by calls, texts, and FaceTime using his smartphone.
4 OPERATION PATHWAYS
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