Technology for the Young and the Young at Heart
My mother, Carolyn, just turned 83. About a year and a half ago, she bought an iPad! Mom started out with a Kindle and she really loved it. After I received an iPad as a gift from my son, Mom took a gander at it and decided she wanted one of those. So we jumped in the car, went up to Best Buy and she bought an iPad! Mind you, my mother never really used a computer and, in fact, was scared to death of them. So the iPad was truly a new experience.
Back up twenty or more years. Pap-Pap Wally, my mother's father, was in his late seventies when he bought his first computer. It was from Radio Shack and had a cassette tape player hooked to it! He loved it and taught himself how to write programs in DOS and use spreadsheets. He bought a new computer about every six months (much to my grandmother's dismay). Pap-Pap Wally was a whiz, especially considering his age. He attempted to teach my mother but she was so afraid she would delete something or make the thing crash, she didn't do very well. Believe it or not, Pap-Pap Wally was instrumental in my beginning interest in computers. When I left work to begin my family in 1980, the office I worked at had just purchased a Word Processor. I didn't get an opportunity to even use it. In 1986, a friend and I opened up a children's used clothing business and decided we should get a computer to keep track of our inventory. So I went to Pap-Pap Wally to take a few lessons! I think my grandfather would now be proud of his daughter and her iPad!
So what does an 83 year old woman do with an iPad? After a rough start and hundreds of "mini-lessons," my mother uses her calendar and its reminders for birthdays, anniversaries, doctor appointments and even to remind her to take her medicine! Mom has several journal apps that she uses to keep track of her daily activities. She uses one of the journal apps to reminisce about days gone by. She will write stories of things that happened in our family and she will use Google Images to add a picture to the journal story. Sometimes, she reverses the process and finds an image that reminds her of something and then writes about it. She uses Tags in her daily journal to keep track of atrial fibrillation episodes and then takes her iPad to the doctor to report how many episodes she has had between visits. The doctors are amazed! Mom also keeps track of her weight since she has to weigh herself daily as part of her treatment for congestive heart failure.
Mom emails, texts and even uses Facebook. She actually uses Facebook more than I do. She's always asking if I saw the picture of this person and that person. I keep telling her that I don't really use Facebook that much. This morning she pointed out a picture of my granddaughter that she downloaded from Facebook. I had her message me the picture since I've never been able to figure out how to download a picture from Facebook!
Of course, Mom uses her iPad in replacement of her Kindle to read books. She has a very close relationship with God and uses at least two Bible apps. She has several versions of the Bible and various concordances. There are many daily devotionals available through Olive Tree, a wonderful Bible application, and she is using at least one read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year devotional.
Mom also has a lot of games that she plays. I will hear her in her room berating Mr. Word for using letters that really don't seem to be words at all in a game similar to scrabble. She also has Sudoku and a jigsaw puzzle game. I am sure there are various other ones as well. Needless to say, Mom's iPad has no battery life left at the end of the day. This is a good thing, since it means she is getting her money's worth out of her iPad! The downfall to using an iPad at 83 is that none of her friends even have email, let alone an iPad, so she is pretty much stuck with emailing and texting family.
I have to say that I'm pretty proud of my mom, the iPad geek!!
