I have a ping of conscious. He had tried to call multiple times and I always was busy, texting would have been faster, and I just didn't want to talk about how I didn't graduate from college. I would receive a letter every birthday or any other day worth remembering and would dismiss it for a few Likes on Facebook. What I should have saved as gold and revered every word was simply placed in a shoe box underneath my bed.
Then the inevitable happened. He fell sick and wasn't able to talk, write, or dial a phone number. The cardinal, high profile businessmen, our country's president came by to see how he was doing. A man whom people grew to love because of his words of wisdom all fell silent because of age. A man I've always assumed was a quarter part man and three-fourths godly intelligence - left us. The same people who came by went and said their goodbyes one last time, with a 21 gun salute and high honors of our country.
I only knew him as my grandfather. I didn't know who he was. My story is not different from any one of you that have grandparents that have called. That phone call I've promised never happened all because of a disconnect of generations with communication. We need to fix this.
We seem to be very involved with teaching our current and younger generation with technology, how it evolves and benefits us. Our generation is able to leave our digital footprint and we may be remembered for future generations. This is something that older generations never understood. They lived in a world where a telephone call trumps a "like/+1" any day, and a hand written invitation took over an event invite.
So what do we tell our older generation? The way you teach your grandparents is to think about what they had in their time. Associate the electronic example with something physical. The original disconnect is in the communication, we as the younger generation should change our way of thinking in order for them to understand our ways.
When it comes to google plus you probably will have a little bit more of a difficult time communicating it's featured. Down below I thought of a few features and it's counterparts in their world. Try to associate today's technology with what they had available at their time or even needs.
Create a Gmail for them, make sure it's something easy to remember. More than likely they don't need an incredibly business-centric email with their first and last name. Usually, this is where you can have oldduderules@gmail.com oh and make sure it doesn't sound too creepy as well. The takeaway and how to relay this information is to tell them that their physical address is now replaced with their e-mail address.
A telephone call, that's all they want. Older generations want to make a phone call to communicate what they can't on the computer screen. Make sure you inform them about the option to click on the telephone through the chat box to make a phone call to anyone if they are online.
Elderly will feel lost with the abundance of LOL, Umad, and ROFLcopters. They don't need to use most of this jargon. Keep it out anytime you are teaching someone to a different generation. Social Media is a perfect platform for communication because here we promote proper use of English, and we at least communicate at a 5th-grade level. Keep it that way.
Email address-> New Physical Home address
Google Hangouts -> Telephone call / Video chat
Communities -> Ice cream parlor for interest
Photos -> Show off your grandchildren to the world
Circle Posts -> to communicate with your family/friends
So there you have it. Sorry if this was a longer post than usual but I really do want to make sure that our generations can communicate with each other. There is so much that we can learn from the older generation. Lessons just lost in digital translation. If you have grandparents that are trying very hard to communicate with you, make that investment in showing them how.
If anything, and I wish it were to happen. There needs to be a white knight who would create a non-profit to teach the elderly our form of communication. If we don't learn our own history we are all doomed to repeat it. And no one else knows history like the ones who have experienced it.
And one last thing... Call your grandparents, they did after all send you something for your birthday every year.