Text-savvy young people are needed to help Counties Manukau senior citizens make the most of their mobile phones, as Rowena Orejana reports.
Brian Jones often has a perplexed look on his face when he uses his cellphone.
''We've got children who give us these phones and we find it difficult to use
them,'' he says. ''We're not so good in short-cuts and funny spellings.''
Mr Jones, Age Concern Counties Manukau's chairman, says senior citizens like him need help. Often the phones end up forgotten on a side table gathering dust.
So Age Concern needs young volunteers with the patience to be an older person's ''buddy'', to come along to workshops to help them navigate the technology's murky waters.
''Texting is so much cheaper than a phone call when their children are in other parts of
NZ,'' says the organisation's health promotions coordinator Wayne Wilson. ''It costs only 90 cents to reassure their children that they are okay.''
He says younger people, who might not even recall a time before cellphones, can use their skills to help.
''We're really looking for senior high-school students and university people because
they would have the maturity to deal with older people,'' says Age Concern's executive
officer, Wendy Bremner.
Elderly people find text language harder to read. ''L8r (later), LOL (laugh out loud), R (are) is all foreign language to them,'' adds Mrs Bremner.
The group has sent flyers to schools to invite youngsters along. So far, Age Concern has had little response. ''We need as many as we can get. There will be 20 seniors in each of the workshops,'' says Mrs Bremner.
They need 20 buddies to each sit with an older person and show them which buttons
to push and what the messages mean.
Depending on the success of the workshops, more will be run next year. Workshops are on October 22 and November 12, 9.30am to noon.
To help, call Wayne or Melanie at 279 4331, ext 800.
Texting tips
Single letters or numbers have their own meanings:
Acronyms can shorten messages:
You can drop the vowels and spell as you pronounce:
'Emoticons' convey emotions: