Tablet for Grandma this Christmas?

If Alka Seltzer sprang to mind just then, think again. The tablet every grandparent needs this year is the gift your children have asked for! Even if – especially if – your elderly relatives have shied away from things internet in the past, a tablet could help you change their lives in the future.

A personal anecdote: I have three relatives in their 80s. They all noted the arrival of computers, and made an effort by going on courses to learn word processing or even, in one case, some programming. All three gave computers up as a bad job, too complicated, not relevant to their lives.

Fast forward thirty years. One borrowed my iPhone to read emails from old colleagues, and was fascinated by the ability to zoom into pictures with a swipe of the finger. One has cautiously asked if she can have a tablet, so that she can Skype to her grandchildren in Australia, see photographs, exchange emails, and book appointments with her doctor – something she has struggled to do since their systems went online. And the other? If anyone doubts that the use of a tablet is instinctive, you should see an elderly lady with Alzheimers’ disease reaching out to scroll through photographs and play videos on a touchscreen device.

Building Digital Skills
Go On UK is a charity dedicated to building the digital skills of individuals and businesses in the UK. If everyone took advantage of the opportunities that are out there, it would deliver huge social and economic benefits. Working through a network of Digital Champions, Go On aims to reach the staggering fifth of the population who are not online – and the great numbers who are trying hard but haven’t realised their potential.

You can be a Digital Champion
Can you help to build someone’s digital skills? Why not start with the people in your family you least expected to use the internet. Help them to understand what they can gain by getting online, find the most intuitive way for them to do this, and show them how to stay safe.
Give a great gift this Christmas: get Grandma the tablet she needs.