Over the course of this summer, I continued to research and work on solving the issue of smartphone illiteracy among senior citizens. According to the Pew Research Center in 2017, “Around three-quarters of Americans, ages 65 and up say, ‘When I get a new electronic device, I usually need someone else to set it up or show me how to use it.’” To help seniors master the art of smartphone usage, I decided to write a thirty page pamphlet on the most used smartphone applications. I took an empirical approach towards writing this pamphlet — recalling how I taught my grandma, who is now eighty-six years old, to use a smartphone.
The pamphlet is named How To Use A Smartphone? A Special Edition Dedicated to the Senior Community and includes the following features: larger fonts and pictures used for visualization of instructions, a glossary list that serves as reminders for new terms, and most importantly, a note section for anyone to input their interpretations. These were the tools my grandma used while learning about smartphone usage, and the thirteen applications this pamphlet includes are those that are most useful to her. I chose to use the iPhone 7 as the teaching model in this pamphlet because it is the most used IOS model in the United States. In addition, subjectively speaking, the IOS system — with clear symbols and setting instructions — is easier to learn when compared to the Android system.
Together with my friend Karina (the illustrator), we used Procreate for the graphic design of this pamphlet. The writing and designing process took about twenty days — a process that included much researching and communicating. Finally, I contacted the printing house for sample testing and printing. The final product can be seen in the pictures below.
Thanks to the support of the CSGC and the Workman fund, I was able to print 120 copies of this pamphlet. I am currently in the process of distributing these pamphlets to seniors in nursing homes in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and California. Additionally, I will be creating a website so that anyone/any organization who is willing to learn about the pamphlet can download it for free (I will also update the pamphlet distribution information on my website). I hope that this pamphlet will make a difference in the lives of the seniors and make smartphone usage education more accessible to our loved ones.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me via email tzhou22@deerfield.edu if you are interested in introducing this pamphlet to your local nursing homes or senior centers!
-Angel Zhou ’22
