[Feature 137] "No G" encounter
Zhu Kang is guiding Grandpa Dong to familiarize himself with the online registration process.
Photo by our reporter Yu Lingge
In the class of helping the elderly with science and technology, the elderly are learning how to take a taxi online.
Photo by our reporter Yu Lingge
Ma Qin (left) teaches the elderly in the community to use computers.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee
The 79-year-old Ma Qin has seven or eight idle old mobile phones in his home.
It is said that these are his "obsolete products."
Starting to use smartphones in 2012, Ma Qin, who was 70 years old at the time, was the first group of elderly people in China to have access to the mobile Internet.
Moreover, even now, nearly 10 years later, he is still considered to be the forefront of intelligence in this group.
The 47th "Statistical Report on Internet Development in China" shows that as of December 2020, the number of Internet users in my country is 989 million, and the number of non-netizens is 416 million. Among them, elderly people aged 60 and above are the main group of non-netizens, accounting for Than 46%.
For a long time, new technologies only seem to be equated with young people, while the elderly are in parallel spaces that are not related to each other.
Relying on the "offline mode" that has been used for many years, the non-intelligent world has occasional lags, but it also runs roughly smoothly.
However, after a special year of 2020, this delicate balance has been broken.
The 264 million people aged 60 and over, accounting for 18.7% of my country's total population, have finally come to encounter the digital age.
Isn't it simple?
Zhang Jiaxin first felt the distance between technology and the elderly not long after he went to university.
In 2008, Zhang Jiaxin was admitted to Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.
Before leaving his home in Hanzhong, Shaanxi Province, Zhang Jiaxin's grandmother, who had always loved Zhang Jiaxin, bought him a laptop with the 4,000 yuan she had saved.
Later, with a desktop computer at home, Zhang Jiaxin wanted to let her grandma see herself from time to time through a video connection.
Unexpectedly, from connecting to the network, installing drivers, running programs, and adjusting parameters, Zhang Jiaxin called and taught many times, but there was still no human figure on the screen. Instead, his grandma was anxious at the computer.
"Isn't it very simple?" Zhang Jiaxin didn't expect that to himself, it represents convenient and fast computers and the Internet, but in the eyes of the elderly, it is a mess that can't figure out what to do.
More than 10 years have passed. Video calls that once required computers, external cameras, driver software, etc., have been simplified to just clicking a button on a mobile app.
However, the gap between the elderly and digitalization has not been reduced equally.
In 2011, vegetable growing and vegetable stealing games swept the Internet, and Ma Qin, who retired at home, also had a great time with his children.
Since he rarely used computers before, at the beginning, every time he wanted to go to his farm, he had to ask his daughter to help boot up, connect to the Internet, and log in to the page. "At that time, he felt that he was out of date."
The same experience, the 82-year-old grandmother Qiu also had.
Two or three years ago, she took a taxi on the side of the road several times, and the driver was obviously empty but the driver ignored her.
"I was still angry at the time. When I went home and asked, I found out that people took the online order. It was not an "empty car"." Grandma Qiu worked in an information technology research institute before she retired. She was a "knowledge and literate" person. Unexpectedly, it has only been a few years, and the taxi will not be possible."
With the increasing popularity of digitization, incidents of inconvenience caused by the elderly because they do not or will not use smart devices are frequently reported in the newspapers.
At the beginning of the new crown pneumonia epidemic last year, in order to reduce personnel contact, almost all service methods such as cash shopping, on-site registration, and window payment were made online. After that, the health code gradually became a pass in public places.
The contradiction between the elderly and digitalization has been highlighted.
In August 2020, an old man in Harbin was unable to show his health code without a mobile phone, and was rejected by the bus driver and bombarded by passengers. In January 2021, an old man in Fushun, Liaoning, was refused by the bus for the same reason.
In October 2020, due to the cancellation of the on-site registration at the hospital, a 70-year-old uncle in Chengdu still failed to see the doctor for several hours.
In a hurry, the uncle said: "You can't keep the old man out!"
...
It seems that overnight, the elderly who have been able to "live well" outside of digitalization have discovered that they can't get out of the house and can't do things by themselves.
Why do you learn these?
"Click on the hospital service number, select'guided consultation', and then click on'appointment registration', you can enter the page of department classification." One afternoon in early June, in a community activity room in the Family Hospital of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, "Small "Teacher Zhu" sat next to the 76-year-old Grandpa Dong and explained to him how to make an appointment through the hospital service number.
When the old man started practicing, "Mr. Zhu" would also help him write down the main points of the process in his notebook.
Around them, more than 10 elderly people are also operating their smartphones with their one-on-one "little teachers".
Such a scene is in sharp contrast with the scene where Zhang Jiaxin organized a science and technology assistance activity for the first time 10 years ago.
Inspired by the experience of failing to connect with her grandma, Zhang Jiaxin, who majored in communications and information engineering, had the idea of helping the elderly learn to use computers and surf the Internet.
In May 2011, with the support of the "incentive action" of Project Hope, Zhang Jiaxin recruited 12 students and embarked on the plan with ambition.
They gave the project a very energetic name: sunset and morning.
However, the 13-person team was disadvantaged.
"I made calls to all the communities in Dongcheng District and Haidian District in Beijing, and I didn't show much interest in our activities." Zhang Jiaxin still remembers the "tragic situation" of that year.
In the end, the reply from the Nonferrous Design Institute community in Yangfangdian Street, Haidian District, became a life-saving straw, "Come and try."
For the first time in class, Zhang Jiaxin and the others posted posters and handed out flyers a few days in advance. They also brought several packages of melon seeds and fruits on the day of the event.
When they arrived in the community, they saw the old man and asked, "Do you want to learn computers?" They were almost treated as a liar.
In more than two hours, only 5 elderly people walked into the classroom, and some of them were "caught" by soft and hard foams as they passed by.
There were a lot of fruits left, and they were finally given to the guardian in the community.
"Why do you learn this?" The debut show ended bleakly. After returning to school with questions from community workers and the elderly, Zhang Jiaxin realized that "helping the elderly" is not just wishful thinking.
Going to class again, in the sunset and in the morning, we invited classmates from dance, calligraphy, and other clubs to introduce cultural and sports performances into the classroom to solve the problem of attracting the elderly.
The courseware used in the first class was also abolished. "Tell the old people what is hardware, what is software, and what is the relationship between MB and GB. They are neither interested nor easy to understand."
Teaching the elderly the computer knowledge that they really need has become a key step in opening up the situation.
Zhang Jiaxin remembers that PPT was popular in those few years, "But the old people didn't apply for a job and didn't report their work. Even if they studied hard in the last class, they would forget the next class because they didn't need it."
Inadvertently, some volunteers discovered that some students liked to "show" photos with each other on the computer, so during that time, the science and technology classroom became a sharing session, and the "little teachers" assisted the students to show their photos of flowers and pets with PPT. , Travel photos... Old people learned how to make simple PPT while communicating with daily life.
Good reputation gradually spread, and more and more communities opened their doors to Zhang Jiaxin's team.
In late 2011, science and technology helped the senior class to enter the Jimenli community in Haidian District, where Ma Qin lived. He became one of the few elderly people who took the initiative to sign up for school at that time.
From the simplest switching on the computer and browsing the web, to listening to music, retouching photos, to QQ chatting and publishing articles, Ma Qin became more addicted as he learns. He is the student with the highest attendance rate in the class. Ask the'little teacher' for leave."
In 2012, smart phones began to spread rapidly in China, and digital cameras, tablet computers, and ATM machines are increasingly appearing in the lives of the elderly. The teaching content of helping the elderly has expanded from computers to a variety of smart devices.
Teach elementary school students to solve calculus
"Look, this is a photo of a recent community event..." At some point, Grandpa Dong, who was learning to register online, flipped through his phone photo album.
"Teacher Xiao Zhu" did not interrupt him, but listened to the introduction of the old man with interest.
"Learning to be a listener is the first step to getting along with the elderly." "Teacher Xiao Zhu" said with some experience.
Born in 2000, "Little Zhu teacher" is named Zhu Kang, a junior at the School of Economics and Management of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.
As an "Internet native", how to teach the elderly the digital knowledge that he has almost innately possessed is Zhu Kang's biggest problem.
The first time he went to help the elderly class, he would just stand still, not knowing how to communicate with students who were older than his grandparents.
The experienced brother motioned him to sit down, and then tilted his body towards the old man—first, he showed initiative and kindness in his body language.
"It's like a primary school student facing a calculus problem." In the help-elder class, some students described how they felt when they first started using a smart device or a new app.
In addition to the deterioration of the learning ability and thinking ability of the elderly, the lack of smart products in terms of ageability is another important reason for this phenomenon.
"In order to learn about online ride-hailing, I took several pages of notes." The 82-year-old Li Li was a little stooped. She almost lay on the table when copying the handouts in class. "But in the actual operation, one step was wrong, and again. I have to start all over again." She smiled helplessly.
Like the disabled, the elderly are also a group that should take care of information accessibility.
However, for a long time, new technologies are equivalent to young social concepts and young people are the main consumer market orientation, so technology companies often fail to consider the needs and preferences of elderly users at the beginning of product design.
Even after the concept of "Technology is suitable for old age" was put forward in recent years, many products have only made a fuss about the superficial skills such as font and icon size.
Gao Tianqi, deputy director of Xiyang Zaichen Charity Center, used a lifestyle app as an example: the user needs to manually search for the word "care version" in the app and add it to the toolbar to facilitate the use of common functions such as health code and scan. It was this first step that defeated many old people."
In the early science and technology classes to help the elderly, many elderly people were stuck at the level of keyboard typing because they were not familiar with pinyin.
Volunteers tried to promote handwriting input, but the old people dragging the mouse to write was inaccurate and laborious.
Later, the "Cross and Cross Code Input Method" that can be typed only by disassembling the radicals of Chinese characters appeared. This is very suitable for the elderly, and everyone is also very interested in learning.
For a while, various communities and Beijing also held a CRC typing competition. The first smart phone of Ma Qin was the prize.
"Unfortunately, there are still too few such products." Zhang Jiaxin sighed.
"Let's review the process of online registration again." Taking advantage of Grandpa Dong's opportunity to close the album, Zhu Kang brought the topic back to the right track.
In the class at sunset and morning, most of the knowledge is taught in chat, except for the unified explanation at the beginning of each class.
Some old people have their ears behind, and the "little teacher" has to speak in a throat; some old people have poor memory and ask the same questions several times; some old people have "individual" needs, such as grandma hate who already has a certain foundation. This time she brought two mobile phones to class. She turned on the hotspot of one mobile phone and poked a few times on another mobile phone without a calling card. The latter can also be used online.
"I learned this specifically from the'little teacher', so I will be prepared to go out in the future."
"Be patient and empathetic." Participating in volunteer service for more than two years is the universal secret of science and technology to help the elderly summarized by Xiao Zhu.
Now, there are more than 10 WeChat and phone numbers of his grandparents in his mobile phone. "If they encounter problems after class, they can consult me at any time."
You should go home and teach me
Grandma Qiu was very willing to ask the "little teachers" for help.
Every time in class, she would carefully write down the name and contact information of the main lecturer "little teacher", "No matter what questions are asked, these kids will not laugh at me".
I would rather ask for advice from volunteers who have only a few friends than to "troubleshoot" my children. There are not a few elderly students who have a similar mentality in the sunset and morning technology to help the elderly class.
"Either the children are not around. If you ask a few more questions, they will become impatient." An old man said.
At the end of last year, Gao Tianqi went to the Sunset Zaichen Charity Center for an internship.
One day, she forwarded an article on the official account that she participated in helping the elderly to Moments. Unexpectedly, her 80-year-old grandma saw it and left a message and said: "You should go home and teach me first."
This half-joking and half-serious remark made Gao Tianqi realize that although she and her grandma are only upstairs and downstairs, she really hasn’t "taught" old people to use a mobile phone. "Usually busy at work, sometimes she asks me and repeats. I'm worried if I don't understand it several times."
The results of the seventh national census showed that the average household population in China was 2.62 persons, and the size of households continued to shrink.
In this context, to help the elderly bridge the "digital divide", it is far from enough to rely on family members or volunteers to help the elderly.
A study by Li Chengbo, an associate professor at the School of Journalism of Chongqing University, shows that a mature social organization system can improve the ability of the elderly to use the Internet.
In our country, the social organization that the elderly most often come into contact with is the community.
"From the very beginning, the community welcomed the'little teacher'." Ma Chen remembered that when the Sunset Zaichen team first settled in, the staff in the Jimenli community tried to apply for 11 old computers and solved the problem of "light listening" in the classroom. Hard to practice" problem.
Now, as the elderly people have more and more personalized demands for the use of technology products, in addition to helping the elderly classroom, the community has invited two college students to spend two hours every Monday afternoon to answer questions for the elderly.
In 2014, Ma Qin initiated the establishment of the Vanguard of Old Party Members in the Jimenli community. One of the important activities is to encourage the elderly in the community to use mobile phones and computers together.
Today, the members of this vanguard team have grown from more than 20 to more than 230. "They are all people of the same age. One will take one, and one will teach one. No one will be embarrassed."
In 2020, sunset and morning conducted a survey on the current status of smart phone use by the elderly in 19 cities across the country.
The data shows that due to ample leisure time and the increase in the frequency of using smartphones in daily life, 72.1% of the elderly hope to learn smartphones systematically and have no resistance to accessing the Internet.
"This survey result is very different from the habitual belief that the elderly resist new things." Gao Tianqi said.
After helping the elderly for 10 years, Zhang Jiaxin found that when the teaching methods and content are appropriate, the learning ability of the elderly can also increase exponentially.
He remembers that it took two weeks to teach the elderly to use e-mail many years ago, and then only one lesson was used to learn Weibo. "When the elderly are familiar with the intelligent'language', they are not much worse than the younger ones."
Even from a certain perspective, the elderly are still at the forefront of technological development.
Zhang Jiaxin said that after experiencing multiple input methods such as pinyin, handwriting, and crossbar code, the emergence of voice input basically solved the problem of typing difficulties for the elderly. "Now, voice input can recognize multiple dialects, which has long eliminated typing in the classroom. course".
The prime year does not come again, life can be morning again
Learning to operate intelligent tools is only the first step for the elderly to enter the digital age.
What awaits them next is a flood of information.
"Suddenly pop-up windows and download links are not easy to deal with." Although Ma Qin has been in close contact with the Internet for more than 10 years, Ma Qin still encounters "blockers" from time to time.
One time when I was shopping online, the app prompted me to receive a red envelope, "I clicked and lit, but the red envelope didn't show up, and I lost 50 yuan."
The lack of digital literacy and information discrimination has made the elderly the main targets of new types of rumors and fraud.
In desperation, avoidance has become a way for the elderly to protect themselves.
Zhang Jiaxin said that until now, although many students have mastered the method of mobile payment, in order to prevent fraud, they will still give priority to cash payment whenever possible.
"Now, science and technology help the elderly have added content such as fraud prevention, identification of rumors and shopping traps to improve the digital literacy of the elderly."
After 10 years of development, Sunset and Morning has more than 200,000 volunteers to help the elderly in more than 100 colleges and universities across the country.
But this expansion speed is far behind the speed of aging.
Nowadays, more and more forces are participating in the action to help the elderly bridge the "digital divide".
In November last year, the General Office of the State Council announced the "Implementation Plan for Practically Solving the Difficulties of the Elderly in Using Intelligent Technology", focusing on high-frequency matters and service scenarios in the daily life of the elderly, insisting on the parallel of traditional service methods and intelligent service innovation, and further promoting solutions Difficulties encountered by the elderly in using smart technology.
At present, a number of technology companies have launched a "one-click car-hailing" service to solve the problem of difficult travel for the elderly.
In December of the same year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Special Action Plan for the Ageing and Accessibility of Internet Applications".
In April this year, the department successively launched the "General Design Specification for Ageing Internet Sites" and "General Design Specification for Ageing Mobile Internet Applications (App)", which clarified the specifications for the adaptation of websites and mobile applications, such as the age-appropriate version of the App. It is forbidden to display advertisement pop-up windows, and the website must provide extra large fonts.
In Zhang Jiaxin's view, technical improvement is only the first step to "build a bridge."
"The government provides measures, enterprises provide technology, and public welfare teams and communities provide services. More importantly, the entire social ecology must have the awareness and space of being suitable for the elderly."
In May of this year, at the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the sunset and the morning, Ma Qin, as an outstanding student representative, showed off the latest "high-tech": using the smart voice broadcast function of the mobile phone instead of reading a section of "students' testimonials" .
"If the heyday does not return, it will be difficult for one day to dawn again." In the digital age, Tao Yuanming's emotions thousands of years ago are being given new meanings.
The English name of "Sunset Zaichen" is "see young", "If you want, the sunset and the morning sun can be as beautiful." Zhang Jiaxin said.
Yu Lingge