From childhood to young adulthood, it is the first time that people become independent. And aging, on the other hand, knocks people down again. It is not only reflected in the details of life, but also means that a person who was originally independent gradually faces the reality of disability, loss of control, and stalling. In the face of plummeting health, energy, and memory, they are becoming more and more silent. But the demand remains. Today, the digital divide is between the old and the times. Taxi, registration, payment...... What young people can do in 3 minutes, it takes half an hour for older people to learn. In their hands, every number, button and operation step in the mobile phone needs to go through repeated confirmation, self-doubt and rapid forgetting. Recently, a documentary called "Our 5 Years" has recorded people's struggle against aging: some elderly people have re-entered the classroom to learn mobile phones in order not to trouble their children, some elderly people have not only extricated themselves from the predicament in the past five years, but also helped more elderly people, and some people have grown up in the project and rethought their relationship with their elderly parents. Relying on the bridge to teach the elderly to learn mobile phones, the old people have completed the difficult second independence in their lives. Daily People chatted with these old people, studied and lived with them, and finally found that aging is a situation that is everywhere, and the key is to choose how to face it.
Text | Zheng Sifang
Edit | Yi Fangxing
Operations | orange
Cabinet of Memory
Sister Rong's home has a huge display case.
Sister Rong is 74 years old. Every day at 6:30, she will get up on time and arrange the task of cleaning the display case for the day, wiping a layer of drawers today and a piece of glass tomorrow. Based on her current physical condition, this task could take a day.
This display case is her treasure, filled with treasures from decades – the harmonica she played on the playground when she was a student, the accordion that her daughter practiced when she was 4 years old, and the old collection of books that you can't find on the market...... The cabinet was filled with memories of her early age.
With her gray-black hair and a silk scarf tied around her neck, paired with an orange trench coat, it's hard to tell her real age. But many traces of aging were just hidden by her, the black hair was dyed once a month, and the orange trench coat was also worn because the body was old and fat, and she couldn't wear other coats.
Because of diabetes and high blood pressure, cleaning the cabinet can also be done a little every day when the body is still good, and when the body is uncomfortable, it is often difficult to wipe the floor at home once a month. Sister Rong loves cleanliness, and she used to not tolerate a little dust on the floor, but now she can only watch the dust slowly accumulate on the floor, just like aging slowly covering her life.
Only when the daughter returns to Beijing after her work from other places can the floor be cleaned.
Aging often brings about a regression in socialization. Sister Rong loves to travel very much, and after the age of 70, she doesn't like to go far anymore, her legs and feet are not good, and she will be tired when she walks a few hundred meters. If there are no seats on the road, she will be in a difficult situation. Shame is also a factor, she is always worried, if she can't walk and stops in the middle of the road to rest, passers-by will see it, what will they think?
▲ Photo / Visual China
Many things that were easy for young people have now become difficult to challenge. For example, just going out, young people can go however they want, whether it is navigating by themselves, or online car-hailing, or swiping the subway code. But for an elderly person like Sister Rong, the more often the features on the phone are used, the greater the chasm they need to cross.
When she was young, Sister Rong was used to hailing taxis casually, but now this trick doesn't work. Sister Rong's sister's home is in Niujie, Beijing, and the bus and subway distance in the past adds up to about 1 hour. Once, after visiting her sister, she was persuaded by her sister to stay overnight, but Sister Rong has always been used to being independent, so she still chose to go home. On the way back, she was trapped by the heavy rain, and she wanted to wave for a car on the side of the road, but after waiting in the rain for more than 40 minutes, no car stopped for her. Finally, it was good to have buses.
Later, she found out, and now she is taking a taxi on her mobile phone, and beckoning no longer works.
In the face of the digital divide, no matter how independent people were in the past, they have to face a cruel reality - they will eventually become the one who needs help the most.
For example, 70-year-old Li Jiulai. Before retiring, he was a soldier and was on the front line during the SARS epidemic in 2003, and these past glories lie in a neatly arranged pile of medals of honor.
And during the epidemic in Wuhan, he became the most helpless person. I can't surf the Internet, I can't scan the code and I can't buy in groups, and I still use the old man's machine. I couldn't order vegetables and grains, and eating became a problem. So a bamboo pole became a lifesaver for him and his wife during the lockdown, and when the family had nothing to eat, he stretched out the bamboo pole and knocked on the window of the neighbor's house, and the neighbor used his mobile phone to help them order daily necessities. When the community volunteers were sent downstairs, Li Jiulai tied them up with a rope and carried them up.
Because he doesn't have a smartphone, Li Jiulai usually doesn't receive notifications in time. Once, he was photographed walking downstairs and posted on the Internet, and netizens began to condemn him, and he didn't know about the turmoil, or when the neighbor told him, he knew that he couldn't go out at this time.
He finally apologized to everyone: "I am deeply sorry for the violation of discipline. ”
▲ Picture / 2021 Shell Public Welfare Documentary "Old Mobile Phone"
The pain of the price
The negative effects of aging go far beyond these symptoms.
It's a brutal regressive process. As children, we learn to walk, talk, and as we become independent, we gain love and dignity. However, as we get older, the abilities we used to take for granted begin to spiral out of control. Human independence is also gradually disintegrating in the process.
Today, the full-scale takeover of life by Internet products has exacerbated this process.
Before the age of 70, Sister Rong didn't really feel that she was getting old.
It wasn't until 2 years ago that Sister Rong went to the hospital and was diagnosed with cervical cancer, and everything changed. At first, she didn't dare to tell her daughter, but later the hospital notified her to be hospitalized for surgery, and Sister Rong told her daughter the news. There were three surgeries in total, and the last one was a direct removal of the uterus. On two occasions, my daughter put down her work and rushed back from the field, and after being discharged from the hospital, her daughter took care of her at home for 12 days, making her wontons and fish soup every day.
Compared with a person's life, 12 days is just a blink of an eye. But Sister Rong felt that it was too long, so long that she felt that she was a drag.
In the past, Sister Rong's family had eight sisters who took turns to take care of her paralyzed mother, and even if it was the turn of one sister every day of the week, there would still be one free. But now, her only daughter has to take on the "heavy responsibility" of taking care of her alone. It was also from this time that Sister Rong did not dare to ignore any small problems on her body, she was worried that the small problems would eventually become big problems, and she would "trouble" her daughter for 12 days.
Wu Xiumin, who is also worried about becoming a burden to her children, is over 80 years old this year and lives outside the Fourth Ring Road in Beijing. When she went out to see a doctor, Wu Xiumin could only call her daughter to take a taxi, but when she got to the boarding point, she didn't dare to move around, so she had to wait for her daughter to tell her the license plate number and how long to wait.
Because the license plate number is not easy to remember, the timing of waiting for the car is generally not right, so Wu Xiumin has not been less standing in the sun and blowing the cold wind.
can't even take a taxi, Wu Xiumin is more to blame himself. She thinks more about how to keep her daughter from worrying about herself. She used to love helping others, but now, she feels that she "can't even use her phone, and she has become the most useless person".
▲ Photo / Visual China
And as we get older, we have to face another cruel reality, which is loss.
After losing her beloved, Sister Rong experienced the loneliest time in her life. In 2006, after her lover left, Sister Rong rarely talked about her feelings in her heart. She began to work overtime desperately, writing research reports for the factory one after another, and helping the factory check its discipline.
The chaotic life symbolizes her inner world. Sometimes, her niece came to the house to take care of her and slept in the house, and she didn't even notice that her niece was coming. Most of the time, she was inexplicably panicked, but she wouldn't mention it to her family and children, and she didn't know she had depression until her sister took her to the doctor and prescribed medication.
And as you get older, you have physical problems, and going out becomes a challenge. There are fewer and fewer opportunities to meet friends, and it is very likely that I go out to go to the hospital for a check-up. The familiar feeling of depression came back to her.
Sometimes, Sister Rong's body is really uncomfortable, and she secretly imagines whether she can take sleeping pills and leave, so as not to cause trouble to her daughter and others.
The bridge of reconstruction
If it weren't for the intervention of external forces, the old people would probably have been sinking in the situation of aging. But over the past five years, a change that has continued to take place in the community's humble place has slowly turned the corner.
At half past nine in the morning, in Shimao Aolin Community, Chaoyang District, Beijing, a group of elderly people poured into the mobile phone class of Beike Public Welfare Community.
Young people may not be able to imagine that even the simplest part of "filling in the captcha" can be a huge challenge for the elderly.
In the past few days, Wu Xiumin, a mobile phone "beginner", is learning how to use Gaode to take a taxi and register with the 114 applet, and wanted to follow the lecturer's decomposition steps step by step, but Wu Xiumin made a mistake in the first step.
To register, she needs to log in to her account, but even if she is prompted to enter her mobile phone number, she can't find out where the verification code she just sent has gone - she doesn't know what copy and paste is, and it is difficult to find the verification code that she should have written down from the pop-up window of the message. Details that these young people don't care about, for the elderly, getting stuck in any step can be undone.
This difficult learning process is often accompanied by intense self-denial and doubt.
In addition to the new problems that are constantly emerging, it is common among the elderly to forget what they have learned. In the process of learning the mobile phone, Wu Xiumin said no less than 5 times in just 3 minutes that he was "old" and "too stupid", and he had just learned the steps of the operation, and he might be forgotten in the next second.
She needs to quit from time to time and start over again, but as soon as she quits, she forgets how to do the previous step. Young people can complete the taxi and registration in 1 minute, and it is difficult for Wu Xiumin to digest it at one time after learning for 1 hour, and after class, if these operations are not used immediately, they will usher in a deeper level of rapid forgetting.
And time is not fair for everyone.
Until now, Sister Rong can clearly remember the Russian she learned when she was young, "Pushchetve" is "knock on the door at home", "Pinch Tenet" is "absent", "Spabata" is "thank you", she has loved painting since she was a child, Sister Rong has become a master of printmaking in the factory by virtue of self-study, and later has been valued by the leadership.
However, these learning abilities, which used to be proud, are now frustrated in learning mobile phones. Her memory is getting worse and worse, and she often writes down the emergency number of the hospital as 112, and it is difficult to remember the functions of the mobile phone she has just learned if she does not use it every day.
Since last summer, Jin Biwen, a mobile phone classroom lecturer, has also become Sister Rong's reliance. Jin Biwen is the agent of Lianjia, and the volunteers of the shell broker represented by her are the main force in teaching the elderly to use mobile phones, and they are also the helpers of countless elderly people who regain control of their lives through mobile phones. Once, Sister Rong couldn't find the photo album on her mobile phone, so she was so anxious to call Jin Biwen, and Jin Biwen quickly came to the house to help Sister Rong solve it. Later, they became friends who talked about everything, and Sister Rong, who was alone, also reminded Jin Biwen of her mother who was far away in Fujian.
Some elderly people find that they can't learn mobile phones at all, and the more they learn, the more problems are waiting for them. This also makes it more difficult to learn.
For example, Cao Gang, one of the protagonists of the documentary, joined the mobile classroom five years ago in order to better volunteer in the community. But the more mobile lessons are taken, the more demand there is, and the more problems there are. For example, how to take a taxi, how to make an album, how to cut videos, are all new problems in front of his eyes again and again.
Cao Gang is not very willing to ask his children questions, most of them are impatient, and more importantly, "the elderly have stronger self-esteem than the young, because the age is there".
In contrast, Cao Gang is accustomed to coming to the lecturer of the mobile classroom when he has questions, and he was originally embarrassed to ask questions, but after getting familiar with them in a few classes, he became happy to ask any questions.
▲The elderly help the elderly in their mobile phone classes.
In this way, in a sense, the only thing that can overcome these obstacles brought by learning mobile phones is patience, patience, greater patience.
Rooted in the mobile phone classroom for 5 years, Wu Shuping of Beike Public Welfare has witnessed the growth of the elderly. In the past five years, Wu Shuping has iterated more than 40 editions of the textbook, and the curriculum has also extended from courses that meet the needs of basic life to more advanced album production and video editing according to different students, all of which are aimed at helping the elderly regain their independence.
In order to enable more elderly people to understand mobile phone lessons, she also invented a set of "mobile phone black words" that elderly people can understand: "magnifying glass" is the search function, "small fan" is wireless WIFI, "small gear" is the setting function, "open the door" is to let go of the permission to add friends in the group chat, and the process of cutting the video is to cut vegetables on the cutting board.
Over time, Wu Shuping became the common "Shuping teacher" of all the students, which in the minds of the elderly and volunteers: trustworthiness, patience and knowledge.
This independence also brings true mutual respect. In addition to the Spring Festival, Wu Shuping's alarm clock rang on time at 10:30 every day, in order to issue a "daily answer" to the elderly in various groups - this is a graphic strategy she made for the problem that the elderly love to forget.
Similarly, every day she receives a morning greeting from a different elderly person: "Good morning".
It wasn't until an aunt told her in person that she suddenly realized that this kind of behavior that makes young people puzzled is a matter of great significance and ritual for the elderly, which is a tacit check-in to tell others that they are still alive today. Therefore, this is also a kind of great trust given to her by the old man.
▲From March 26, 2020 until today, at 10:30 every day, Ms. Wu and her daily answer will be online on time.
Secondary independence
Now, the boundaries of the world, which was once compressed by the Internet, are slowly expanding.
After learning how to use a mobile phone, Sister Rong's life has changed dramatically. For example, her radius outside the house began to be calculated by the taxi fare.
It takes 4,000 steps to go back and forth to the nearest bank, and taking a taxi is the starting price; the taxi fare to the nearest hospital is 40 yuan during peak hours, and only 19 yuan at noon, so she often goes to the hospital at noon; she goes to Niu Street to attend her brother-in-law's funeral, and it costs 50 yuan to take a taxi, and her sister is in better health than her, so she was not allowed to take a taxi, but after walking 5 bus stops, she was exhausted, and finally took a taxi home.
Sister Rong said that if her health was better, she hoped that she could go through the places she hadn't got.
Although she can't go too far, Sister Rong's world has also been broadened on her mobile phone. Before, she organized a party between the hair children, and in Jingshan, she met the hair children she hadn't seen for decades. They grew up together, and gradually lost contact after marriage and work, some went to Xinjiang, some went to Inner Mongolia, and now they meet again in Jingshan, they are all over 70 years old. Even though it was difficult to overlap each one with the memories of the past, she warmly embraced every friend who had been gone for many years.
After returning home, Sister Rong was still looking at the familiar but unfamiliar dots and Xiaolian in the photos over and over again, and she stayed up until two o'clock every day to make an electronic album for the children. This is also learned in mobile phone lessons. Sister Rong is very happy because this is the first reunion in decades.
And in the mobile classroom, after becoming a student again, the memories of childhood often flashback. Sister Rong still remembers that when she was a child, she spent a team day at the Xidan Theater, and more than 80 children entered the team together, wearing a red scarf on their chest, and watching the children's movie "Colorful Road".
Before, she felt regretful: "It feels like time flies too fast." But through her mobile phone, she successfully organized another team day activity. The old children in their 70s came to Beihai Park again for the team day, wearing red scarves and rowing in the lake, singing "Let's swing the oars".
At that moment, all the old people were as happy as children. Sister Rong said: "As long as you wear a red scarf, you feel like you are still a child." ”
There are elderly people who rely on their mobile phones to pursue their memories, and there are elderly people who rediscover the meaning of life in the present.
Five years have passed, and now Cao Gang's identity has changed, and he has become a member of the "Silver Volunteers" of Beike Public Welfare Mobile Phone Class. Because from Monday to Wednesday, he is a silver-haired volunteer in the mobile phone class, a volunteer in Chang Gung Hospital on Thursday morning, and will return to the mobile phone class in the afternoon. And on the weekend, the child will come back to see him.
In the past, Cao Gang and his wife always stared at home, and they inevitably quarreled, but now his life is filled.
"After being a volunteer, my life is full, and there are people who talk and talk, and now we live in buildings, and the community doesn't know each other, and after participating in the activities, I have met a lot of friends. At the end of the class, Cao Gang stood at the door of the classroom to see off the students, and the most rewarding thing was that the students would thank him in addition to thanking the lecturer of the class after class.
In this way, in order to be able to become independent for a second time, the elderly pick up their mobile phones and walk to class, regaining the relationships, order, and values they lost in the past.
▲Teaching aids made by silver-haired volunteers.
According to the data, in the past five years, Beike has organized 12,543 mobile phone public welfare classes in 60 cities across the country, carried out more than 47,000 mobile phone training courses, and served more than 760,000 elderly people. At the same time, mobile classes for the elderly are also evolving, shifting from offline to online. At half past two o'clock in the afternoon every Wednesday for the past year, Wu Shuping's identity has also been added - the anchor in the live broadcast room of the Shell Public Welfare Video Account. This means that she will become a teacher to more elderly people.
As one of the core promoters of the "I'll teach you how to use a mobile phone" public welfare project, Wu Shuping not only witnessed how the elderly became independent through mobile phones, but also harvested her own growth in the process of witnessing the elderly slowly achieve independence.
Wu Shuping herself has an impatient personality, but in the past five years in the project, she has honed her infinite patience with the elderly. Before joining the "I'll teach you how to use a mobile phone" public welfare project, her family would also ask her what to do because she couldn't use her mobile phone, and at that time, Wu Shuping only took her mobile phone most of the time to solve the problem directly.
But now, the more students she comes into contact with, the more she understands her parents. No matter how much the old people have achieved in the past in all walks of life, they now have the same identity. Just like when her parents taught her when she was a child, Wu Shuping has become more patient and attentive to the elderly.
Now, Wu Shuping always encourages them again and again: if you have questions, you must ask them, and don't be embarrassed to ask them.
▲ The live broadcast room and Mr. Wu are growing.
But no matter how many skills she has learned and how many mobile phone classes she has taken, Sister Rong is still the same Sister Rong, her starting point will not change - she hopes to reduce the burden on her daughter. Now, she plans to send herself to a nursing home while learning to draw, play the harmonica, play the accordion, and teach other seniors how to use smartphones like herself.
Some people have also worried about her, feeling that the nursing home will make her feel depressed when people "leave" every day. But at the age of 74, she has experienced the departure of her loved ones one after another, and she has begun to be able to say "death" with a smile very calmly.
Now, she thinks more about how to achieve greater value in her later years – and this is the most precious thing she has had after her second independence.
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