Nation urged to facilitate the rise of 'silver surfers'

Active learners

The modern world isn't a problem for all seniors, of course; some are active earners who enjoy surfing the internet wave and believe people should be open-minded about new technologies.

Chen Huilan, a retired engineer, is very skillful at smartphone use, despite only acquiring her first handset as a 60th birthday gift from her family.

"Elderly people often underestimate their abilities, as does society as a whole. However, as long as they can read Chinese characters and have normal understanding capacity, smart technology should not become a sort of monster for the 'silver generation'," the 69-year-old said.

Since 2017, Yao Hongbin, a 76-year-old from Wuxi city, Jiangsu province, has been providing seniors in his community with twice-weekly free lessons about accessing a range of services via smartphones.

So far, the classes have discussed how to use WeChat, digital maps, car-hailing services and food-ordering apps.

"In terms of WeChat, we have spoken about how to ignore someone if we don't want to add him or her to our contacts list, how to block specific people's posts and how to transfer money to friends," Yao said.

Cheng Rimin, 78, said the classes have been very helpful. "Seniors usually prefer larger characters (to make reading easier), but before I attended the classes I didn't realize there were several ways to adjust the font size," he said.

Some experts said the government should provide residential communities with financial support to run classes to teach seniors how to use digital services on smartphones.

The classes could also help quell some seniors' fears about using the internet, especially security issues and concerns that logging on will generate sky-high bills, they said.

Zhang, the NPC deputy, suggested businesses should introduce new versions of their apps tailor-made for the elderly to make operating them easier, along with larger font sizes and ensuring that their accounts are connected to their children's so they will always have access to help.

Zhu Lihua, associate professor at Qingdao University's School of Business in Shandong province, said he believes more apps tailored for seniors will be released in the near future as a result of the rapid rate of aging among the country's population.