A new poll has shown that grandparents would rather send their grandchildren an emoji than have an over-the-phone conversation with them, and we can practically hear the excitement in tweens' voices. When mom was growing up, there was only one way to talk to grandma without being in the same room and that was over the phone. As we got older, this started to seem like a bit of a chore, when we would rather be doing other things. Like many things, communication has changed over the years, and children, tweens, and teenagers never seem to make any phone calls anymore.
They would rather text, and even their texts are short, often involving a lot of emojis. According to Study Finds, this is quite alright with grandma as this is how she would prefer to communicate as well. The older population is getting used to advanced technology, and they may be enjoying it.
The study was conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Comfort Keepers and they polled 2,000 US participants with half of them being over the age of 65 years old. This love of technology may have grown even bigger throughout the pandemic, as this was the only way that a grandparent could interact with their grandchildren. They even have their favorite emojis, with 43% saying the heart and another 43% saying the happy face.
The poll also found that 1 in 10 of them send GIFs as a way to communicate with their grandchildren. This is great because speaking to a child/teen in their language can have a great impact on the bond and relationship between grandparent and grandchild.
Alexis Abramson, Ph.D. is a Lifestyle Gerontologist and they stated that there was a desire to connect over this last year, which explains the keen interest in technology for the older generation.
That they are making an effort to learn the language that kids are speaking and adapt to be able to communicate more often and more effectively. This change has had such an impact on them that 1 in 3 participants over the age of 65 now say that they prefer texting to phone calls.
Using emojis and GIFs weren’t the only things that the senior population picked up, they also replied by saying that they were introduced to Netflix by their grandchildren throughout the pandemic. While the pandemic has been hard, it has been nice to see that families were still able to stay connected to each other.
Sources: Study Finds, OnePoll, Comfort Keepers