Seniors make most of smartphones
Print Edition
LIU Li, 54, teaches third grade students in Beijing and keeps in touch with their parents on WeChat.
Four years ago, she did not even have a smartphone and then, in 2012, her sister brought her an iPhone 5 and a whole new world opened up to her. “I found there were so many things that I needed to learn,” she said.
Liu soon noticed that many of her coworkers were using WeChat, so she asked a colleague to install the app for her and teach her how to use it.
She still remembers her first “moment,” a kind of WeChat newsfeed to share text and photos. She posted photos of the first snow in Beijing in 2012.
Now she does far more. She has a chat group that includes parents of all her students. When there is an activity at school, she sends photos or videos of students to their parents.
“I can send notifications and answer parents’ questions at any time via the group. It’s so convenient,” she said.
“Convenient” is a word she uses frequently to describe smartphones and mobile Internet, and convenience is probably the main reason why she has become so dependent on them. “Now I use my phone for checking maps, booking trips, shopping and calling cabs,” she said. When she first came across payment by phone, she was a little skeptical but soon began to “rely on it.”
Mobile payments also changed the life of Liu Jianhua, 55. After her daughter showed her how to shop online with her phone, she seldom goes to supermarkets.
Mobile Internet also caters to her needs for information. Instead of reading newspapers, she now gets the news on phone every morning. “If there is a good article, I share it in my moments,” she said.
For retiree Zhu Dan, 56, browsing WeChat moments has become part of her routine. “I would feel a little awkward if I don’t do it one day,” Zhu said.
“I mainly post photos of myself going out for activities or trips. It’s just a record of my own life, but when my friends comment or like the photos I get very excited,” she said.
She has even learned how to use photo processing apps to make her photos look better, which takes time but makes her happy. “I’m quite into this new stuff now and very willing to learn more,” she said.
But according to a 2015 survey by Wuhan University, around a third of the seniors “frequently” encounter difficulties when using the Internet and about half of them “occasionally” have problems.
Li, 65, said he gets annoyed that restaurants offer discounts for mobile payment but he hardly knows anything about smartphones except chatting on WeChat. But some businesses have tried to help.
In 2015, Wang Guanchun founded Laiye, a mobile Internet platform that helps ordering cabs, food, hotels, air tickets, housekeeping. Users can send requests by text or voice message, and Laiye staff do the technical stuff. Although the company targets young professionals, senior people are also their clients, Wang said.
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