My Experience of Teaching a 72-year-old to Use Facebook

Modernity has changed the world to a greater world, but this depends on the age of humans who interact with modernity, especially when it comes to technology. The young generation, born and exposed to the technological advancement world, tend to know more about technology as compared to the previous generation of our parents, grandparents and great grandparents. The young generation, in particular, knows how to smoothly interact with the modern technological systems to a greater extend, and they have become much flexible in their work as compared to any other generation of the world history. I had met with my parents’ good friend, Walter Manson, who is aged 72 years. Upon inquiring on the technological set he would wish that I teach him, he was sincere enough to accept that he had never used Facebook before. Though he has a rough idea on the use of the internet, as far as his age is also concerned, he does not know how to handle Facebook and has never tried registering on this site. It was a nice moment teaching him through, and this paper reflects on the experience I shared during this process, basing my references and explication on the concepts learned in the psychology class, including changes in the human domain as age also progresses

Mr Manson was an interesting person to teach, though at the beginning I never felt comfortable because of that difference in age. I got it challenging to begin the process since he is a curious person, always anxious to learn and to have a question in every step. This gave me confidence because I noticed that he was a sharp individual intellectually, and I had to be very keen in every direction we could handle during the whole process. I began by a small recap on few things which he told me he had done before, for instance, a quick tour of using internet generally, before embarking on Facebook class. He enjoyed every step and loved being practical – he was “obsessed” with trying out every step during the recap for himself, and only what he wanted was guidance as he does it alone. I got it interesting, as we were using a laptop, giving us a wide pixel to work together and read everything clear. After that, we embarked on the whole duty of learning Facebook. We took the first 20 minutes for introduction, where, with my short history of Facebook, told him about its background, the pioneers as well as its foundation country. He enjoyed the historical part of it, and I was surprised to notice that he had interacted with some of the founders, during the days he used to train captain. Later on, we continued with the whole process of creating a new Facebook account, uploading a profile photo and cover photo, looking for friends and eventually posting on Facebook. He did all these practically, and all that I was doing was just to give directions.

I found Mr Manson interesting, and in a real sense, there was a slight difference in our physical performance as far as the domains of human functioning are concerned. This difference only came in with the fact that he was old and could not be speedy enough. But he could see the exact thing I could tell him – though slowly and ever wanting to be sure on every step. I understood him so well and every step we could repeat twice to sharpen his understand and the last step, he could do it all alone, with few inquiries and directions here and there. According to the human functioning, it is a fact that as age deteriorates, the physical morale of an individual reduces and elements like being slow in performance are witnessed, so to me, this was just a normal difference.

Again, he was an attentive individual, and this even challenged my knowledge when compared to what I learned about adult’s attention in the psychology class. I learned that as the individual grows old, also the attention ability is affected to a greater level, but this was rarely the case with Mr Mansion. This guy was 72 years and could fully be attentive as I explain every wit of information to him. I became surprised when I realized that he could record some information down consistently and even inquire about every concept that he did not get right. However, the difference between us was that, due to his age, he could not concentrate for so long. Hence, after our first 20 minutes of doing the introduction, we relaxed for 5 minutes before proceeding to the practical part, which again took us 30 minutes, before embarking again on a short break. His memory was perfect, and I realized this when he began to do the practical part of our process. He mastered every concept. However, the difference, which I understood because of his age, is that he tends to forget especially when I talk for long. So I invented a method of only describing every step as we do it practically, before proceeding. The length of time of concentration much influences human functioning, especially the mental functioning of adult. Young people can concentrate for a long time, and they will still remember some concepts, unlike the adults. So I became much careful in this since I had learned it in class as well. The processing speed was only affected by the intensity of information I could give him at a time. When we began going step by step, he could do exactly as we say and performs the executive functioning part properly.

Though the whole learning process was a great ordeal all together, there are challenges that I faced as far as teaching adults are concerned. In psychology, it is true that adult learning takes time as compared to that of young people. I had to be repeating every step once or twice to be sure that he masters the concept properly. However, to some point, it became hectic when I had to repeat the step more than three times. For instances when it comes to adjusting the Facebook settings. However, I had to understand him, due to the background knowledge I had in my psychology class, and we proceeded well. Also, the age difference made it somehow difficult and challenged for me to teach. He was much older, and I could not feel much comfortable teaching him, because he is of the age of my parents. However, upon understanding him, the whole session was all joy, and we coped up so well to the end, and he eventually learned the whole process. The experience was a great one, and I practically understood what I had been learning in class as far as development psychology and other psychological concepts are concerned.