On Bringing Older People into the Computer Age

Abstract

During the past decade, I have found several occasions to bring my laptop computer into counseling sessions with older people. We close the door, and I ask the person to press the button on the side of the computer We listen to the noises and watch the lights blink, and I say, It's booting up. Then I ask the person to type a few words just like on a typewriter. Finally, I point to the delete key and have the person do the magical erasure. Invariably, the person says, Wow. So that's what all the fuss is about. What does this have to do with counseling? I am bringing people who feel outmoded back into the present day. Certainly many older people are as comfortable with computers as any younger person, but I have met a considerable number who feel the pace of technology has left them behind. Issues such as loss of self-esteem and doubts about one's capacity for new learning can become entangled with this sense of having become a stranger in a strange land. An essential aspect of becoming comfortable with computers is familiarity with what they can do. I always include a demonstration of how the machine can correct spelling and can provide a list of synonyms through the built-in thesaurus. At a recent group therapy session, I did the word-typing and erasure with each person, one at a time. Then I walked my laptop around the circle with the screen showing fifteen alternatives for the word beautiful, more than the group had been able to come up with on their own. The exclamations were exuberant: is fabulous! A woman with dementia thanked me profusely, saying she had always wanted to know what was going on with these machines. She was more animated than I had ever seen her. These simple acts, pressing a button, typing on a keyboard, and making images on a screen disappear, move people from the position of outsider to insider. This transformation is conducted in a situation of safety, away from younger people who might become patronizing or impatient. If problems with memory and new learning do become apparent, these can be handled in a supportive and nonthreatening manner. Memory is often challenged by these machines we call computers. Remembering what to do next is particularly difficult with the keystroke systems and not entirely solved by mouse pointing systems. One man in his late 60s enrolled in a community college class, Introduction to Computer. He sat in the computer lab shoulder-to-shoulder with people in their early 20s or younger. …

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