Never too old to learn digital skills

Marjorie, an 102-year-old service user who lives on her own. She has been supported by Chris, one of our Digital Enablement Officers. Thanks to our support, she has learned to use the Synapptic software on her smartphone, and use accessibility features on her desktop computer. She really is proof that you are never too old to embrace the digital world!

Chris first met Marjorie approximately four years ago when she was 97 years old. Chris completed a digital assessment with her and recommended using a smartphone with the Synapptic software. She had not used a smartphone before, so this seemed ideal for her. After some training, she was able to use the phone for sending texts and emails, reading letters that come in the post, accessing YouTube, and searching the web.

Since those initial training sessions, Chris has continued giving her advice over the phone, but last August, she asked for another face-to-face training session. Marjorie was struggling to open links from her doctor’s surgery that she received via text message. Chris demonstrated how to do this. Marjorie also wanted to access the newspaper on her phone, so Chris downloaded her a newspaper app and showed her how to access it and get a newspaper read out to her.

Marjorie is the president of the oldest running film society in England. She’s been a member for an incredible 84 years. She was the treasurer at one point, but said that being president is a little easier now.

She uses a desktop computer for some of the emails and administration for this, and also uses her desktop computer to carry out online supermarket shopping. Chris demonstrated how to use some of the accessibility features such as the zoom feature, use of dictation in Microsoft Word, and how to have documents read aloud. Marjorie was really pleased with this.

Marjorie is really grateful for all the support she has received from our digital enablement service. It has allowed her to stay independent and stay a part of the community.