Families these days typically stay in touch through social media and talk face-to-face with video calling. But sometimes, Dad or Grandpa can be left out if they aren’t quite as tech savvy as their kids and grandkids.
For Father’s Day this year, give your loved ones the gift of connection by making sure they can use technology in all the right ways.
There are some specific tutorials that will be a world of help for the tech-challenged in your life. Not only can these steps help make a phone less daunting, but all the future connection can help people feel less lonely.
Here are the best tech skills to teach Dad. The one to free up space should be at the top of all of our to-do lists.
Make text bigger
Sometimes, people don’t use their phones as much as they otherwise might because they have to find reading glasses to read the text. But Android and iPhones make it easy to enlarge text by dragging a slider to just the right size.
Address text size on either type of phone by going to Settings.
- Then for Androids, tap Font Size and move the slider right or left.
- For iPhones, tap Display & Brightness>Text Size to drag the slider. For even bigger text options, go to Settings>Accessibility>Display & Text size and tap Larger Text.
Make a video call
Instead of a weekly phone call with Grandpa, encourage them to put in a little face-to-face time, even if it is on a phone.
- Open the Phone app on Android, select a contact and tap the video icon below a name to connect.
- For iPhone users, open the FaceTime app, tap “New FaceTime” and type the person’s name.
Download social media
The reason most of us know what anyone else is up to these days is because of social media. While we may not talk to all of our friends each day, it’s fun to see their last vacation or kids’ achievements through social media.
Remind your dad that he doesn’t have to post or even follow anyone on Facebook or Instagram other than the kids. He will delight in knowing their day-to-day activities and will then have more conversation starters when he does see them.
Show Dad or Grandpa how to download the apps where kids and grandkids are most active. Head to the App Store on iPhone and Google Play Store for Android and let them know if it says “Get” or “Install” next to the app, then it’s free.
Save photos and videos from text messages
When you receive a photo or video from someone else, both Android and iPhone make it easy to download it onto your phone.
- Simply tap the download button next to the photo or video on an iPhone.
- For Android users, first tap the photo or video, then the download button.
Back up data with cloud
Now that Dad and Grandpa have saved all those photos and videos, make sure they are backing up their data so they never lose it.
Phones have some internal storage, but once that fills up, they will need to use either Google Drive or Apple’s iCloud to save photos and videos. Those come with some free storage, but they may need to pay a monthly fee for more space.
- To make sure data is backing up on an iPhone, go to Settings>[your name]iCloud>iCloud Drive and toggle on “sync this iPhone.”
- For Android phones, go to the Google One app, tap Storage>Backup>View>Set data backup>Manage backup.
Free up space
Now that they are saving photos and videos and backing them up, Dad and Grandpa may notice their phone runs out of storage fairly quickly. Before they purchase a monthly backup plan, show them how to remove photos, videos, GIFs and other data taking up space in their messaging app.
When someone sends you a photo and you’ve downloaded it, your phone is then storing two copies of that photo, one in your photos and one in your messages; it’s taking up twice the space. So make sure you’ve saved the photos and videos you want to keep and then delete them out of your messaging app.
I was about to purchase more cloud storage, but freed up 3 GB by doing this just last week.
- On an iPhone, go to Settings>General>iPhone Storage>Messages. Then tap each of the following: Photos, Videos, GIFs and Stickers and then tap Edit in the upper right corner of the screen. Sadly, you can’t delete all, but tap the bubble next to the ones you want deleted and hit that trash can.
- Android makes this process even easier. Go to Google Photos, tap your Profile picture in the upper-right corner of the screen and tap “Free up space.”