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Posts with tag seniors

102-Year-Old Facebooker Has More Friends Than You

by Tim Stevens, posted Aug 15th 2008 at 3:16PM

102 Year Old Facebooker Has More Friends Than YouIf watching the constant flood of younger and younger kids to Facebook is making you feel old, then check out our cure: Add Ivy Bean to your friends list. At 102, Mrs. Bean is the oldest person with an active Facebook account, beating the previous oldest person by five full years.

Bean was born back in 1905 in Bradford, England, and made it through both World Wars, the invention of the computer, and the ever-accelerating spread of the Internet. She's a member of a Facebook group that keeps track of the oldest living Facebooker, currently sitting at 300 members, has her own fan club (45 members) and also has 27 friends on her profile. We're guessing that number will be going up quite a bit after this story gets some play.

If you're still feeling old, try subscribing to the blog of 95-year-old grandmother Amelia Lopez, and read the archives of Olive Riley, who last month passed at the age of 108. If you're older than them, perhaps we should be writing about you! [Source: The Daily Mail]


Most Senior Citizens Don't Own a Cell Phone or a Computer

by Tim Stevens, posted Aug 11th 2008 at 1:02PM

Mobile Phone and Computer Adoption Lagging in Seniors
From all the stories about wired AARP-ers, you might think of today's senior citizen as a Wiimote-swinging, brain-training, video-gaming technological hipster (with replaced hips). That's certainly the case for a growing number of seniors out there, but sadly, it's definitely not the majority, at least according to a recent survey in Germany showing that 58-percent of seniors in that country have neither a computer nor a cell phone.

This backs up findings from a similar US-based survey, which stated that only 35-percent of seniors are online. The combination of no Internet and no cell phone seems particularly sad, as those are two of the most pervasive and important technologies out there today. It's a bit worrisome that most seniors are missing out on both, since no only are they unable to access a huge amount of information, but they're also missing out on the cell phone's potentially life saving abilities in an emergency -- not to mention that all the hookups. [Source: The Earth Times]

Geriatric Wii Tournament Crowns 84 Year-Old Winner

by Alon Avdi, posted Jan 4th 2008 at 4:31PM



Don't look now, but it appears that even the AARP digs the Nintendo Wii gaming console. Want proof? TG Daily reports that a Washington, D.C.-area retirement community recently held a Wii bowling tournament that culminated in a matchup between 79-year-old real bowling champion and an 84-year-old Wii-prodigy challenger. Nancy Davies beat Hal Winters 202 to 182 at the Riderwood Retirement Community in one of many Wii tournaments held at the geriatric complex. While Winters is an actual bowling expert, Davies only began bowling only a year ago, exclusively on the Wii, which makes the upset so shocking.

Since several Wii units were received last March, the plaid-loving residents have flocked to play and challenge each other in shooting and hockey games in addition to bowling free-for-alls. This item of news marks the unique marketability of the Wii toward demographics heretofore unresponsive to the gaming world, groups including the elderly, female and middle-aged populations. Now if we can just get Grandma to talk trash we'll be getting somewhere...

From Engadget Via TG Daily and Examiner.com

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Study Shows Video Games Make Senior Citizens' Brains Sharper

by Tim Stevens, posted Nov 21st 2007 at 2:04PM

Study Verifies Gaming Helps Seniors' BrainsNintendo has long tauted its 'Brain Age' series of games as not only fun, but also as being beneficial to your noggin. The say the games can even make you smarter. A new study verifies those claims, at least in seniors. According to the study, seniors were able to perform mentally as well as they did in their thirties after spending just 40 hours with brain training software.

The study, created by a company called Posit, which markets its own (substantially more expensive) software that competes with Nintendo's, showed that seniors who trained using its computer games performed better than those who used more traditional educational techniques. The company's $400 software, like Nintendo's, provides "mental exercise" for those who play, challenging them to remember series of numbers and perform other tasks that test their noodles.

While your grandparents may already be having Wii tournaments with their friends, it may be time to set them up with a Nintendo DS and copy of 'Brain Age.' We're guessing that spending time with it will be just as beneficial as the more expensive stuff, plus most people find using a DS to be a lot easier than a PC.

From Daily Mail

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AARP Offers Video Game Training for Senior Citizens

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Nov 2nd 2007 at 5:03PM


We thought that the AARP catered to the elderly, not gorillas. But judging from this video on how to play video games, we were wrong.

This is what you can learn from the AARP 'How to Play Video Games' Video:

  • There are different "boxes"
  • Then you have a controller
  • "The controller actually controls..."
  • Pushing the buttons on a controller while someone else holds it and you feign interest is "a lot of fun"

Seniors watching this video have gotten a lesson, but in how to be patronizing, not how to play video games. Perhaps they should have clarified what the "boxes" really are. Or shown you how to put a game in the "boxes." Perhaps explained how to hook up the "boxes." Or even just walk through a bit of game play as opposed to the three seconds of 'This is Sponge Bob. Pushing the controller makes him move. Isn't this fun Mary?'

Your grandkids could do a better job of explaining.

Our favorite part is the supposed transcript of the video. It's so far off we can only assume that the AARP employs some of its hard-of-hearing seniors to do the transcription.

What do you think? Is this video game lesson too simplistic or are we being too harsh?

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Scholarship Gives Cash to Teens who Help Seniors

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Sep 26th 2007 at 2:11PM

PNY ScholarshipCalling all technologically inclined high school seniors! Memory maker PNY launched its Seniors Helping Seniors college scholarship contest in which high school seniors (either individually or in teams of up to five) are invited to put together projects to help teach senior citizens about technology.

Submissions are being accepted until December 31, and a $2,500 scholarship will be handed over to the winning team. There are also three prizes for honorable mention (a PNY-branded USB flash drive and a flash memory card) and undisclosed rewards for simply participating.

Teaching seniors about the latest in computer technologies -- and how to utilize them -- is something we can all get behind. One caveat: The contest has a head-scratching requirement that all entrants be public high school students.

From Gear Log

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Senior Singles Hooking Up Online

by Tim Stevens, posted Aug 7th 2007 at 10:31AM

Senior Singles Hooking Up Online
Wired's online 'Sex Drive' column often covers the seedier side of the Internet and its denizens, but this latest entry deals with a subject a little closer to home: your grandparents and their unquenchable sex drives. Yes, it seems Grandma and Grandpa are online, too. But while you're reading up on the latest tech news, they're reading about the latest Viagra news and using social sites to hook up with other ready and willing partners of a certain age.

Disturbing perhaps, but not just because of the inevitable shattering of your perceptions of the golden generation. The real problem, according to Wired, is that generation's lack of knowledge about sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs). The article says that STDs are becoming far more prevalent in the senior community, including the surprising statistic that 30 percent of all HIV-infected people living in New York are over the age of 50.

The takeaway from all of this, of course, is that the next time you're fixing your Gramma's computer, you're better off not looking through the browser history ... you might be shocked at what you find.

From Wired

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