Aging In Place Wednesday

Aging in Place Wednesday 

Each Wednesday, Laurie Orlov, tech industry veteran, writer, speaker, elder care advocate and Faculty Advisor for the Aging in Place Technology Department at Computer School for Seniors will be sharing her insightful research on how seniors can safely and successfully live independent lives in the home of their choice.

Distance grandparenting with webcams

So if you are a baby boomer and want to imagine your long-distance grandparenting experience (assuming it hasn't already begun), here's the scenario. The New York times has a compelling article today about grandparents staying 'close' to their grandchildren through PC-mounted webcams -- using Skype and iChat, along with a link to a blog discussion about Web cams and grandparenting.

Here are the most interesting datapoints in the article:

 Nearly half of American grandparents live more than 200 miles from at least one of their grandchildren. And another study (U of Southern California) learned that two-thirds of grandchildren see one set of grandparents only a few times per year, if that. 

Webcams are undergoing a 20% growth in video calling because most new laptop purchases include them(IDC).

The grandparents mentioned in the article are in their 50's and 60's. Their kids are in their 30s.  So while everyone was wondering about video-monitoring of elders, how hard is it to imagine that as these grandparents age into their 70's and 80's that the same technology will serve yet another purpose -- keeping in touch with them to see how they're doing?

For more information, visit Laurie at Aging In Place and at the Aging in Place Technology Department at Computer School For Seniors.