And a great majority of these elderly have no interest or technical awareness to participate in Zoom or FaceTime calls. If they DO have cell phones, they’re flip-phones or Jitterbugs, not smartphones with apps.
...technical awareness...
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My husband’s cousin is 84, independently living in an upscale retirement community. She paid a lot so that she will have assistance and medical care if things come to that. He is her last living relative that gives a damn. His brother is an ultra prog.
My husband calls about once a month. The cousin cannot set her answering machine and the residential rapid response person, whichever one is on duty, never seems capable of getting it to work, either, Cousin will not answer the phone (landline) unless she knows who it is. He sent her a print out sheet with his number, so she can check, but she may not be able to get to the phone fast enough and may not understand the CID function.
She will not use her Mac Air because she cannot remember the password. It probably needs a complete update.
So, once a month he calls and only once in a while will she answer.
She’s bored. The facility had their crafts teacher/coordinator quit for personal reasons and are not hiring a new one. No communal meals.
She has a condition that puts her at risk and she is naturally a shy, skittish type.But she loves the residence and is convinced they are *taking care of her*.
I think she doesn’t answer the phone because she has no life and nothing to contribute to a conversation. She used to chat about her craft classes, her exercise class, the people at dinner. Not any longer.
The community she bought into is gorgeous. It is also essentially a prison.
We are very blessed that my MIL is still somewhat tech savvy at age 92. We do FaceTime calls with her as well as landline calls. If someone is with her, we can do Zoom or Portal calls, but she doesn’t know how to initiate those.
With my Mom, it was only land line calls when she was by herself. She couldn’t make cell phones work for her once her dementia got hold of her, but she could manage the real telephone. We had to get one that had large buttons on it with our names (she couldn’t always remember our faces at a certain point.)
You are right, though, my MIL is an exception to the elderly handling smartphones. Most do not have them or know how to use them if they do have them.