When Rebecca Bennett turned seventy-eight, her grandchildren gave her a smartphone. “I put it in a drawer,” she says with a smile. “I was afraid I would break it, or press the wrong button and lose everything.” For months, the phone stayed in the drawer, and Rebecca continued to use her old phone with big buttons.
Everything changed when her granddaughter, Maya, moved to Canada to study. Rebecca missed her terribly. Maya was busy during the day, and their phone calls were short. “I wanted to see her face, not only hear her voice,” Rebecca explains. So she took the phone out of the drawer and asked her grandson, Owen, for help.
Owen, who is fifteen, became her teacher. Every Friday afternoon, they sat together at the kitchen table. He showed her how to send messages, take photos and make video calls. Rebecca wrote every step in a notebook. “At first, she asked the same questions again and again,” Owen remembers. “But she never gave up, and I learned to be patient.”
Today, Rebecca talks to Maya on video every Sunday evening. She also sends photos of her cakes to the family group and reads the news in large letters. Last month, she even helped a friend from her building to set up her new phone. “Learning something new keeps my mind young,” she says. “And now I am the teacher!”