Technology Can Be STRESSFUL
Hello Everyone –
I hope your week is off to a good start and all is well.
As many of you know, Annette and I have clients from all walks of life and all ages. We love working with our clients and definitely count it an honor to be there to support them.
A few months ago, we had the privilege of helping one of our senior clients secure a new apartment, which turned out to be a lot more complicated than you might think! We wanted to make sure our client moved into an apartment in good condition, located in a safe area, with either a ground-level unit or a building with an elevator. These requirements eliminated many of the available apartments and made our search pretty challenging.
Surprisingly, the most difficult part of the entire move was that everything – and I do mean everything – had to be done online.
Contacting the property management companies to look at potential apartments: all online.
Submitting the rental application and setting up other related accounts: all online with supporting documents needing to be scanned and uploaded.
Paying first and last months’ rent and the security deposit: all online – no checks.
Setting up monthly rent payments on a completely different website than these deposits: all online.
Securing renter’s insurance: all online with a smartphone required to complete the process.
Honestly, it was a rather startling experience for us because we kept on thinking about people who did not have a computer or a smartphone and those who did not have the technical capabilities to scan documents and communicate solely online.
Amazingly, the only part of the process that was offline was the physical move!
Even though I have been around computers my entire life and have always had easy access to computers, I still found the whole process overwhelming at times!
Because of situations like this one, Annette and I have become much more diligent about checking in with our senior clients to see if they need help with their computers, phones, TVs, and other technologies. As we do this more and more, we are finding that problems and frustrations with technology are truly a significant source of stress for people.
It seems that the pandemic moved our society to be even more online-based. We saw this when scheduling vaccinations online was the only option, something many of our clients didn’t know how to do. That was the beginning of us putting a special emphasis on helping our clients with tech help – and this is getting to be a more prominent aspect of our coaching practice every day. We love this because we love teaching our clients new skills, and we especially like to support them so they remain independent and gain confidence in their abilities.
Our method isn’t just to do it for our clients and walk away. That may fix the current problems, but it doesn’t help long term. Instead, we teach our clients what to do, often providing written instructions to use as a reference, and then we follow up to make sure they are building their confidence as they use their devices.
The truth is, all of us, no matter how many birthdays we’ve had, can learn how to use technology. All it takes is some understanding, support, and time to build confidence in our abilities.
If you or someone in your life needs help in this area, please reach out or let them know that we are here and ready to help. We work on all types of devices, whether Apple, Windows, or Android, laptops, desktops, phones, tablets, smart TVs, and more!
Wishing you a beautiful week,
Ada