Tech Talk
By Tak Sato
In the fall of ‘86, a phone call was about $2.50 a minute — too indulgent for a poor, homesick kid starting his freshman year at Cleveland State University more than 6,000 miles away from home. Aerogrammes, those pre-stamped and foldable pieces of thin stationery, quickly became my friend.
International airmail took a week to get to Yokohama, Japan and another week for my parents’ reply to arrive; a two-week round trip to complete our communication. Although we get instant gratification from current communication methods like texting and instant messaging, some Boomers and older adults may actually yearn for those days when letter writing offered a dash of romanticism. Remember waiting for the mailman to arrive to see if he had a letter for you?
21st Century Frog and Toad
If you are familiar with the “Frog and Toad” series of children’s stories by Arnold Lobel, which I loved as a kid and reread to my son some 40 years later, in the story “The Letter,” Frog writes to Toad after finding out that his he was despondent that he doesn’t get any mail. It was Frog’s way of connecting with his dear friend Toad.
Today, Toad may have a different outlook. Who wouldn’t want an email inbox free of spam and junk mail? Who wouldn’t want a voicemail or answering machine that blocked robocalls? Unsolicited email and robocalls are nuisances but John Donne was right when he wrote “No Man is an Island.” No one is self-sufficient. We need each other.
In the 21st Century where the digital world, (the internet and the cloud) is our communication platform for many of our daily tasks, nurturing what I call one’s “connectedness factor” requires embracing digital literacy so we can use appropriate tools to connect with family, friends, and community. These tools have become necessary life skills.
Who’s There?
I often hear grumblings from Boomers and seniors that their sons, daughters, and grandkids don’t call or visit as often as before. Consider that the generations following the Boomers, such as Generation X, Millennials and Gen Y— basically your sons, daughters, and grandkids — mostly have embraced the digital world communication tools such as texting, messaging, video chatting along with social media platforms like Facebook.
In the free Discover Digital Literacy! program offered through our nonprofit, I show participants that part of embracing digital literacy includes accepting and embracing the preferred communication tools of the demographics that came after them. This will enable them to rekindle and rejuvenate family and friend connections.
With summer get-togethers, picnics, and cookouts upon us, it’s a great opportunity to find out how your family and friends stay connected in the digital world. Digital literacy, just like general literacy, should open new possibilities.
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Tak Sato is a founder of the Cleveland-area nonprofit Center for Aging in the Digital World (empowerseniors.org) that teaches digital literacy to people 50+ through the free Discover Digital Literacy! program.
