Have you ever had to show your parents how to use a smartphone?

Are you tired of them pronouncing WhatsApp as “What’s up” or “Wazzap”?

Or the worst, getting continous spam messages from them.

This woman made observations on a group of older people with smartphones and his findings will change your views.

It’s a steep learning curve. Everything is new and alien. Very little is instinctive. Past experience is often useless, often a hindrance.

It’s not just about learning what button does what, but also learning to reconcile with the idea of a button itself.

The whys are not very obvious even though the whats and hows are explained by the next generation.

That the phone can be an ally in many ways is itself up for learning.

Overall, using this piece of technology pretty much feels like getting thrown into the deep end with a strange device as life raft.

So small things become accomplishments. Good morning messages, for example.

Such rituals become comforting as well. And they serve as an incentive and a platform of validation.

My aunt uses her meagre data connection to painstakingly search for and download dozens of good morning images every week.

These she sends one at a time everyday to her alumni group on WhatsApp.

She has not heard of memes. She does not consider that if she can find these images freely on the web, the recipients can as well.

She does not consider it spam, for how can something that is chosen with intent and such care be spam?

The regularity of this greeting, not the greeting images themselves, is for her the message of affection that she is conveying.

Her alumni group is made up of people like her in the sense of the internet being a novelty. Everyone is learning and eager to show it.

They have their own standards and bars of achievement, some of which we would laugh at if we didn’t know the context.

All the elders I met today agreed that for them, timing mattered in their online interactions.

Releasing a video clip or image or joke or other message before the others was a huge achievement. They would compliment each other on that.

So they ensured that if they received something impressive via one group, they’d circulate it in their other groups as soon as possible.

“Everyone knows me as the joke guy,” boasted an old uncle. “And everyone in my groups appreciate my song links,” said an aunty, proud.

There are reputations and expectations and an etiquette that emerges not from ours, but from their own dynamics.

The smart phone interactions between our elders is a thriving ecosystem, with its own politics and compassions.

Even though a lot of the education about this enabling technology came from their children, these explorers are still very much self-made.

There are things your kids just cannot communicate to you, and things they just cannot understand about you. So our seniors help each other.

There’s hurt when kids tell them they are using the internet wrongly, that they miss the point. The point is that our points are different.

We younger folks have moved on from grappling with the actual hows and are now fighting or laughing at older people on the whats.

“This alert was not sent by NASA,” we fume, frustrated. “How can you believe something so obviously fake, ma?”

Content is motivation for them, but their immediate challenges are feeling through all these complexities,

fitting into their WhatsApp communities, learning to keep up with the youngsters and discovering the potentials of this magical device.

We know how to identify spam, respond to it, avoid it, discourage it. But remember (I do) when we ourselves first met the internet?

The incredible cognitive assault? That is our parents now, with more than double the age and less than half the exposure.

Just a few takeaways:

2. Don’t expect their digital worlds to follow the etiquette of the ones you are familiar with.

3. Be patient. Make learning easier for them. Help where your help is needed.

(In many cases, the technology is so alien that it is tough for them to know what help they need. So, diagnose and offer clear, simple aid.)

4. Don’t patronise/condescend. It’s two human beings helping each other with what they’re each familiar with that the other isn’t.

Every time I get short with appa or amma, I remember the overall impression of my entire childhood,

which was of patient, affectionate care and guidance from my parents to my complete arrogance in and absolute ineptness at life. :’)

5. There’s no need to put up with factually incorrect posts and misguiding information. Or general spam.

Just help them see why it can be harmful and how they can ascertain veracity before they forward information. Empowerment works.

Such a heart-warming story that will make you rethink how you treat the older people around you!