Last month I posted about how Grandma lost her way to her daughter's house. Well it happened again. This time we were able to track her and call her to help get her home much more quickly. Here's more to the story.
One problem with living with family is that you will eventually upset each other. There is a reason kids grow up and leave home. When it comes time for a parent to move in with a child, it will be stressful. Well Grandma got caught eating a brownie at her daughter's house before dinner and her daughter gave her the you'll-spoil-your-dinner speech. This offended Grandma and she jumped in her car and drove off. The next morning she showed up at my house. I knew she had to return to her daughter's in a week for a doctor's appointment and so my wife and I welcomed her into our home for a limited stay.
I used the visit to see how Grandma is doing with her new phone and other technological devices in her life. It didn't take long to realize that Grandma doesn't know how to use her new smartphone. She doesn't even know how to answer it. She claims it won't let her answer a call when she is driving. While this is a feature I wish all phones would adopt without hands-free car integration, the reality is that she just isn't familiar enough with her new phone. So lesson number one was to help her get more familiar with her phone.
I also asked Grandma to explain how she got lost on that fated drive back to her daughter's. Of course she didn't really have a good explanation. I explained to her that she just needed to stay on the freeway and not take any exits until she got close to home. That sounds pretty easy, right? I actually explained it in much more detail to help ensure the same problem wouldn't happen again. I felt pretty confident in my explanation and was sure she would drive right home.
Saturday morning arrived and Grandma jumped in her car to head back to her daughter's. About an hour later, my wife used the "Find my Phone" app to locate Grandma. Contrary to all my directions, Grandma exited the freeway she was supposed to stay on and headed off on the wrong way. I couldn't believe it. My wife gave her a call but it went unanswered. Fortunately Grandma's daughter was also watching and managed to get her on the phone. Grandma added 45 minutes to her drive but eventually made her way home.
Smartphones are great tools. They can be used to prevent driving mistakes, provided you are using them to help you navigate to your destination. They can also be used to fix that mistake if someone is watching you and can call you to provide correction. Unfortunately this all relies on the user being able to use said smartphone. Grandma still needs help.
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