Bridging technology and an older generation together

Local business owner volunteers time to teach cell phone technology to seniors

By Neil Zolot

EVERETT – New technology can be hard to navigate. Once, the country was agrarian in nature with an agriculture-based economy and society. Then came the Industrial Age with its factories and urban centers. Now we live in the Information Age full of an ever-changing line of apps, devices and platforms for communication and media consumption.

Young people born in the Information Age know its systems because that’s all they’ve experienced. Middle-aged people often adapt for economic and social reasons, although often ask their kids for help. Adaptation is probably most difficult for older people. After a long life of doing things one way and having to change doing something that’s similar but different, like communicating through e-mail not the mail, cell phones not landlines and taking pictures on a cell phone not a camera, is a challenge.

“Part of my job is working with the elderly and one of the things I heard was they feel like second-class citizens,” Community Nurse Joanne Agnes, herself a senior citizen, said. “Technology has taken over and they feel like outsiders. If you read about what bothers elderly people, it’s technology because they can’t keep up. I felt we needed to change that.”

To help do so she reached out to 21-year-old Raphael Lopes, owner of a new cell phone store on Norwood Street – Tech Exchange and Repair – not far from City Hall where Agnes works. She found herself in the store with someone she felt could help. “I told him he could do so much for people,” she remembers.

So began a series of sessions Lopes had with older people at the Senior Center or apartment complexes. “She asked me to help explain technology to older residents,” he remembers. “Some needed help with their phones. They couldn’t connect speakers so they could hear conversations or download apps to access services for rides and deliveries.”

He also helped people store and access photos and e-mail and receive them, among other things. “Cell phones are what people rely on these days and some older people don’t understand the technology,” he said.

Some of the people had shaky hands or poor eyesight and needed specific phones to help compensate, something Agnes and Lopes said big chain stores don’t understand.

A lot of the issues were the same ones he helped his own grandmother face.

Lopes resides in Peabody, but hopes to move back to Everett, where he lived while attending Madeline English School and a year at Everett High. He then moved to Hawaii with his mother for High School before heading back to this area. “There aren’t as many money-making opportunities in Hawaii,” he said. “There are fewer people and everything is about tourism. There’s more economic opportunity here.”

Starting at a young age, Lopes has also worked at Lowe’s and in auto-body shops and restaurants. “I’ve been working since I was 15,” he said. Occasionally, he runs into former coworkers or classmates.

Having a mother and brother in Hawaii and other family in Brazil, where his extended family originated, Lopes often video-chats with relatives, something he knows older people want to do with children and grandchildren. He also likes having a Brazilian restaurant right next to his store.

Dalcio Silva is Lopes’ landlord and called him “a good kid and a hard worker.”

One of the people able to take advantage of Lopes’ expertise is military veteran and retired comedian and library employee Jack O’Brien. “A lot of people are in the same position I was and he helped me out a lot,” he said of Lopes in reference to difficulties using a cell phone. “It opened up a whole new world for me.”

“He has a phone he can use now and knows how to use a computer, things that make him feel he’s a part of society,” Agnes said.

There is an ongoing need and audience for Lopes’ expertise and he feels he’s had success he can build on. “Once they learned about how to use cell phones, they got the hang of it,” he said of people he’s helped.

Agnes recalls seniors were a little shy when first meeting Lopes, but “started asking questions and learning.”