roobarb:

 

Eva888:

 

You can’t email a 90 year old in another country who only has a landline. 

 

 

What is that device that every one seems to carry in their pocket these days? Some 5 inch lump of plastic and glass. I think it's called a telephone.

 

Your comment made me smile because you have possibly always lived in a flourishing modern society.

Some of the older people I speak with via Skype don’t have cellphones or computers. Either because they are in poorer countries or are too old to grasp the technology. Trembling hands are also a reason not to be able to use a small cellphone easily. 

One person in particular who we Skype with very often and also happens to be partially blind now from shingles, lives in Beirut where they only have electricity for a few hours each day and the rest of the time rely on neighbourhood generators that work or don’t, depending on if they can get petrol. They have a computer which has been set up by their son but who lives in another country. You might ask why son doesn’t virtually assist. Son is very busy travelling and father doesn’t like to keep bothering him. I have managed to send him links or helped in most cases by talking him through, otherwise he calls a tech in.

This is one of the reasons I want to find a simple app that can be used on his computer and he can use the computer to phone an international mobile or his embassy and more importantly that I can gift my credit via that same app to them if needed so they have it for emergency calls. Some countries you are unable to buy credit because their currency is not accepted by the app maker. Skype did all the above seamlessly and thus been used by a lot of third world countries. 

They were particularly worried about having outside contact when they were being bombed a few months back and might need to flee. He would often call me in their night our day, when they couldn’t sleep from the bombs. Sobering to hear. I had contacts in another country who had an empty holiday home that I had arranged for them to go to should the urgent need arise. Sounds dramatic but that’s the reality of many people in the world.