3 Helpful Tech Ideas for Your Thanksgiving Visits
It’s not unusual for those of us who are the “family geek” to spend time with less tech savvy people during the holidays, so why not use Thanksgiving as an opportunity to assist or improve the tech lives of loved ones? Express your thankfulness and gratitude with some helpful tech tips!
1: Setup, Explain, & Demo Video Chat with FaceTime / Zoom / Skype / etc
Video Chat is such a wonderful way to keep in touch with people who are far away, but many people who have an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or PC, have no idea how to participate in a FaceTime call, let alone how to make a video call. And it’s not just FaceTime, there are many other video chat options out there, like Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp.
Whatever your video chat app of choice is, go through the process of setting up video calls on their device, explaining how it works, and doing a demonstration.
2: Set Emergency Contacts on their iPhone / Android
Setting up emergency contacts on a relative or loved ones iPhone, or Android, is a good idea, and it’s easy to do. Many people overlook this simple feature, but, in an emergency, it could prove invaluable.
Add emergency contacts on iPhone:
- Open the Health app on iPhone
- Tap the profile picture
- Choose ‘Medical ID’
- Choose ‘Edit’
- Scroll to ‘Emergency Contacts’
- Tap the ‘Add’ button to add an emergency contact
- Choose a contact to add, then add their relationship to the person (relative, friend, partner, spouse, etc)
- Choose ‘Done’ to save changes
Adding emergency contacts on Android:
- Open the Settings app on the Android device
- Scroll down and tap Safety & Emergency
- Tap on ‘Emergency contacts’
- Tap ‘Add Contact’
- Select the appropriate emergency contacts from the contact list
3: Security Checks, Install Software Updates, etc
It’s always a good idea to perform a basic security check on peoples devices.
Do they use a passcode, and do they know what it is? Did they forget a login to something important, like an email account or otherwise, and could you help them to recover or reset that lost password?
Have they updated their system software in a while? If not, is there a reason why due to software compatibility, or are they simply oblivious to the need to install software updates on their devices and computers?
Have they updated their apps?
Do they use two-factor authentication for added security, where applicable? You could help to set that up for them too.
Review privacy settings on social media accounts together (a startling number of people who are not tech-savvy use Public profiles on FaceBook, Instagram, etc, without even knowing they’re blasting their stuff to the wide open world), and give them an overview of privacy features and what the changes may mean.
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Happy Thanksgiving!
