Editor's note: This story is part of Southwest Michigan Second Wave's On the Ground Calhoun County series.
  
ALBION, MI — Marjorie Wilson and Willie Tabb are among a generation of older adults in Albion who are sprinting to keep pace with technology that they didn’t grow up with.
 
They are engaged in a marathon to become Tech Savvy Seniors through a program of the same name led by students attending Albion College.
 
“I did not grow up with technology,” says Wilson who is 80 years old.
 
It was at the insistence of her adult children that Wilson took her first tentative steps into technology with the purchase 10 years ago of a cellphone and desktop computer. But, there was a steep learning curve and a lack of technical support.
 
When asked to rate her level of expertise with what to her were totally foreign objects, Wilson says, “I was bad. I didn’t know anything, My kids tried to teach me but they didn’t have any patience with me.”
 
John GrapRenee Powaga and Phoebe Holm pose for a photo at the Forks Senior Center in Albion.Tubb, 75, says he had some familiarity with technology as a result of his 36-year career in manufacturing. But, he says he also had people around him who were a lot more adept at it than he was so he would tell them what he wanted and they would do it for him. This included an administrative assistant who would create documents for him.
 
“I had a hard time adjusting to technology. I kind of really resisted for a while,” he says. “I had a job where the company put a phone in my car and I had a pager. Then I went to a cellphone in the 1980s.”
 
None of this was by choice and as he entered into retirement he knew there was no escape and he would need to move to a different type of in-house tech support.
 
Like Wilson and other Albion-based seniors, he found that support through Phoebe Holm, a senior at Albion College. She is among five AmeriCorps student volunteers from the College who spend time Monday-Friday alternating between the Forks Senior Center and the Albion District Library to work one-on-one with seniors seeking to improve their mastery of technology.
 
Their work began in August 2023, after stakeholder groups and organizations, including CareWell Services Southwest Michigan and Calhoun County Senior Services, dedicated to the well-being of seniors in Calhoun County reached out to AmeriCorps to see how the organization could assist them, Holm says.
 
“They identified that there was a need to provide technology assistance to the older population in Calhoun County, especially in Albion,” says Holm, who is majoring in Psychology with a concentration in Human Services.
 
Funding for the program comes from Calhoun County Senior Services through its Senior Millage and AmeriCorps.
 
Older adults have the option to have student volunteers come to their homes or meet up with them at the Forks or the library.
 
John GrapPhoebe Holm, a senior at Albion College, is an AmeriCorps volunteer providing tech advice to seniors.“We connect with seniors who may have issues with transportation, isolation, and loneliness. We go to their home and help them with what they need,” Holm says. “We’ve seen maybe eight different clients in that sphere.”
 
They are among more than 60 seniors who have been participating in the Tech Savvy program since its inception. They are repeat clients who make the trek to the Fork or the library, many every week, to gain a working knowledge of their own devices.
 
Holm says she’s this represents a broad spectrum including learning how to delete contacts from their phone; transferring information from one device to another; changing passwords; setting up new accounts and photo albums; forwarding emails; and reporting Spam emails.
 
“John GrapRenee Powaga and Phoebe Holm pose for a photo at the Forks Senior Center in Albion."The central theme is social media platforms and communication,” she says. “I see a lot of personal doubt with seniors when it comes to technology and being able to navigate it. They will tell me that they’re always scared they’re going to mess something up.”
 
This is a particular concern with scams or phishing emails that older adults may not know how to identify.
 
The technology generational divide
 
Unlike younger generations who have grown up with technology and know what suspicious links and emails look like, Holm says the generations before them don’t have the tools, skills, and techniques to identify potentially malicious content that pops up on their screens.
 
“I’m still learning,” Wilson says. “Sometimes I push the wrong button and I’ve had to have my kids or grandkids get me out of it.”
 
But this family-style Geek Squad isn’t always available and willing so Holm has become her technology go-to.
 
John GrapRenee Powaga and Phoebe Holm pose for a photo at the Forks Senior Center in Albion.“I’ve learned a lot from Pheobe. I didn’t know how to get to my calendar and put information on it or present online coupons at a store. She taught me how to do that and I wrote it down step-by-step. I’m pretty good at that now. I also learned how to take photos on my phone and send them to someone else.”
 
At first, Wilson says, this was all very frustrating.
 
“I kept thinking that they just didn’t make this easy for older people. Young people can go in and just do it.”
 
Tabb, who is a Fork Senior Center Board Member, says adapting to the use of his phone and laptop as his primary means of communication has become less challenging. He sought Holm’s assistance for a more high-level task.
 
While serving in the military, he began amassing a collection of music from vinyl records that he recorded onto reel-to-reel cassette tapes which he eventually transferred onto a computer and iPod.
 
“I wanted to upgrade to a better iPod because I had filled up the first one and it had kind of limited capacity,” he says. “Phoebe helped me transfer the information to a new iPod. It took probably two weeks to transfer it to the new iPod. It’s also all on my phone so now I have it on both places. It’s a lot of music, almost 500 songs, and that was just a selection from all of the music I’ve collected.”
 
John GrapRenee Powaga and Phoebe Holm pose for a photo at the Forks Senior Center in Albion.This was after he went to a Big Box retailer that tried to talk him into buying an iPod with even more storage capacity and a new laptop.
 
“AT&T, T Mobile, and Verizon are charging people for help with simple little tasks. Instead of paying them, we’re able to help seniors for free. It’s crazy,” Holm says, “Because they could come to us and we’re willing to do it for free. This shows that there’s a need for our group.”
 
Aversion or immersion
 
The older adults Holm coaches represent many different technology comfort levels.
 
“You have highly-educated people with master’s degrees and they know their stuff and then you have people who know nothing about technology. We’re willing to help with whatever they need,” she says.
 
Although there’s no time limit, those who opt for in-home visits must commit to at least four sessions and can go up to 22 while programming offered at the Fork and the library are available with no limits.
 
John GrapRenee Powaga and Phoebe Holm pose for a photo at the Forks Senior Center in Albion.Holm, who developed the program at the library which is its newest location in the trial phase, says she and Lindsey Knowlden, MSW, Director, Albion College AmeriCorps, have been doing plenty of marketing on platforms like Facebook and Instagram and reaching out to community organizations to refer older adults to the Tech Savvy Seniors program.
 
“I think the reason we’ve had a hard time with people responding to or utilizing us is because they’re either reluctant to utilize technology because of how scary it can be,” Holm says. “A lot of them are stubborn and don’t like to reach out for help. A lot of times, it is hard to ask for assistance or help. They will say, ‘I’m so dumb when it comes to this stuff.' It makes me sad because it’s a relatively new thing. Devices are always changing and it’s hard to adapt and accommodate skills to using them. Technology is annoying, difficult, and a scary thing.”

If you don't understand technology, you're not alone.
 
Navigating the landscape of modern digital technology can be a formidable challenge for many elderly individuals, according to an article on the Road XS website. 

“A substantial proportion of older adults signal an overt need for assistance when they learn to operate new digital devices; a mere 18% report feeling capable of picking up these skills independently. Social platforms, such as Facebook or Twitter, present additional hurdles for elder seniors, with 56% requiring help to utilize them for social connections.”
 
Common themes expressed by older adults, according to Road XS, include “the sense of being swamped by an overload of information, anxieties surrounding privacy and information accuracy, the potential stigma attached to certain technologies, discomfort, high costs, and a sense of strangeness with today’s gadgets.”
 
Tabb says, “I grew up in the ’60s and I don’t like to share a lot of information.”
 
John GrapRenee Powaga and Phoebe Holm pose for a photo at the Forks Senior Center in Albion.He says he has concerns about technology taking away self-will and self-determination.
 
“I would tell young people, ‘Don’t let it take your self-will to make decisions, I came from a generation that had to figure this out and saw this coming.'”
 
He did away with his landline after seeing that this was the way things were going. Wilson still has hers and says if someone leaves a message on that phone she always sees it.
 
“Half of the time, even if I get a message on my cellphone it may be a day or two before I see it because I don’t always look at it. I haven’t made it that far yet. Phoebe has patience with me. When she sees me coming I don’t see that expression of ‘Oh lord, here she comes.'”
 
“Senior individuals often encounter obstacles in learning to use new technologies, mainly from unfamiliarity, underscoring the necessity for structured guidance and ample patience in their technological acclimatization process,” says Road SX.
 
Holm says adapting to the ever-changing technology landscape is difficult and for seniors can be even more challenging because they may not want to ask for help or have outdated beliefs about what technology is and isn’t.
 
“I feel like us just being present in areas that seniors utilize a lot is making them feel more comfortable. They may be a little wary and feel like we’re going to rush through it. Being empathetic and understanding of their experiences is how we get around this,” she says. “It’s the best feeling to have all of these adults sit down with you and have a conversation and use us as a needed resource. It’s helped me to be more understanding.”