By Tak Sato
I don’t know when the delta variant took over as the dominant COVID-19 virus spreading in our country today. What I do know is that from January 2020 to a few weeks ago, the virus has resulted in 39 million infections and 624,000 deaths in the U.S., 65 percent of those in adults over 65.
What the statistics don’t show, and what the media doesn’t often cover, are the emotional and mental health risks of social isolation that many Boomers and older adults have succumbed to during the past 18 months.
Although life-saving and necessary to curtail the spread, physical distancing and stay-at-home orders increased the risk of loneliness, especially for those who remained in their own homes. Lockdowns in senior living facilities made group living difficult, too, without visits from family and friends.
Technology’s Role
During Ohio’s first stay-at-home order in 2020, technology was the answer for businesses and schools. Employees working from home and students remotely learning – in both cases, over the internet in real time – provided an illusion of normalcy.
Tech Talk readers know that I teach digital literacy to people who are 60 and older, and I’ve been preaching the importance of digital literacy as a 21st Century life skill. However, I never imagined that a pandemic would catapult into the stratosphere the sense of urgency to be digitally literate. To this day, many older Boomers I meet do not use any technology – even a cell phone – so helping them embrace digital literacy is a calling that I continue to answer and that is rewarding for my heart.
Conversely, I also run into Boomers who own one or more internet-connected devices, such as a smartphone, tablet or computer, but their tech skills vary widely. That’s a challenge for those of us who want to video-chat with older family members and friends who have devices but are reluctant to use them because they either don’t know how or aren’t confident in their ability.
What worked for my wife was to lean on a common interest. She told her mom, thousands of miles away, of her project to gather family recipes. My father-in-law used to handle video chats. After his death, the video chats became less frequent with her mom. The recipe project was just the motivation needed to nudge her mom to master the video chats. Now they meet almost daily; recipes take up a small percent of the conversation. More than a year into a government-imposed lockdown, my mother-in-law is connected to us through technology.
Of course, being in the same place at the same time for conversation and companionship is best. When that is not possible, frequent phone calls are better than nothing. I know this to be true for my mom: if my fully vaccinated aging-in-place mom does not have a daily visit or phone call from her fully vaccinated best friend, she would otherwise go days without talking to anyone.
Today we can do better than just a phone call. Video chats are the next-best thing to being there.
Ohio and most of our nation enjoyed a short-lived “no mask required for in-person gathering if fully vaccinated” moment earlier this summer. With the delta variant, we are back to being cautious — for good reason — with mask recommendations in place again. Whether or not another stay-at-home mandate arrives, start now to help older family members and friends to master video chats. Keeping connected through technology is a skill that benefits everyone.
