Cell Phones for Seniors
Seniors may have a reputation for being slow to adopt new technologies, but no one could deny the usefulness of having a phone you can take with you anywhere. Cell phones mean you’ll never be stranded without a way to call for help, you can check in with someone at home when you’re at the grocery store trying to figure out if you actually need more milk, and that you can stay in touch with loved ones far away with minimal effort.
Seniors recognize all the benefits and, as such, 77% of them own cell phones. While fewer seniors currently own smartphones – only about 18% of them – those that do are happy to have them. 86% of senior smartphone owners say they find the device freeing.
The data makes it clear that seniors aren’t foregoing this technology altogether, although they do treat it differently than other generations do.
How Seniors Use Cell Phones
Cell phones today, particularly those of the smart variety, can do a lot. From playing addictive games, to checking your bank account balance, to making videos – many young people and adults use their phones for a wide ranging and growing list of tasks.
Many seniors just don’t see the need to do all that. They mostly use their cell phones for a few basic communication needs like, you know, calling people.
Possibly because they’ve managed to live their whole lives without missing the ability to play Angry Birds or look up the name of that actor from anywhere they may be, those things don’t appeal to most of them. Add to that small screens with smaller type and difficult to use keyboards and seniors who have any difficulty with their eyesight or dexterity would just as well use a desktop for anything that requires reading or typing.
The Best Cell Phones for Seniors
Some of the uses cell phones are made for simply hold little interest for seniors, but others they’d be more inclined to try if cell phones were made more with their needs in mind. Businesses have started to become savvy to that fact and, as such, have released a few cell phones designed specifically with seniors in mind.
Great Call makes two models of this phone, both specifically made to appeal to the needs of seniors. They have bright screens, are far easier to navigate than your typical phone, and provide the option of adding an urgent care feature that makes it easy to call a doctor or nurse at any time of day for healthcare or medication advice.
The simpler model, the Jitterbug5, is a flip phone that offers everything described above, but otherwise provides just the more basic uses one would have for a phone – calls and text. While that’s enough for many people’s needs, you also have the choice of the Jitterbug Touch3 which has more smartphone features, including healthcare apps that let the user check their heart rate and make it easy for caregivers to check in on the senior.
Emporia’s Euphoria phone is designed to answer some of the common complaints seniors have about cell phones. They have a high-contrast screen, so it’s easier to read and a large keypad so seeing the numbers and letters and typing is much easier than with normal cell phones. They also include an emergency call button, so seniors can call for help quickly and conveniently if the need arises.
The Doro PhoneEasy makes taking calls, as the name suggests, easy. When it rings, you can answer by simply flipping open the phone, and hang up by simply flipping it closed. The keypad buttons for texting are large and the sound quality is nice and loud so you should have no problem hearing the person on the other end. It’s even hearing aid compatible.
It includes an easy to access emergency button on the back that will alert the contact of your choice when pressed. And it includes GPS so your loved ones can find you if you get lost, a nice value add for anyone dealing with dementia.
Snafpon advertises their phones as Big Button Phones for Seniors, so you know any typing or texting you do won’t be too difficult. Like some of the other options, it has an emergency button you can use to quickly and easily alert loved ones in a jam. The menus are designed to be simple and the company provides instructional videos online for anyone who could use help being walked through how to use the phone.
The Snapfon is also hearing aid compatible and can be set to a loud volume. And you can add 24/7 monitoring service if you want loved ones to be able to track the whereabouts of the phone’s owner.
One of the Nokia105’s big selling points is a long battery life, so you don’t have to worry about remembering to charge it often or risk being stuck stranded with a dead cell phone. Its design and menus are simple to figure out and it has a keypad with large buttons so the numbers are easy to see. It’s also one of your more affordable options, making it a smart choice to consider for seniors on a budget.
Just5’s CP10S BestinSpace has a bright, colorful keypad that will make it easy to find anytime you’re digging through a purse or trying to spot it when you’ve misplaced it. The audio is good and loud and the keys are large for ease of use. Like many of the others, it has an SOS emergency button to make getting ahold of your loved ones in a pinch fast and easy.
Cell phones can provide seniors with a higher level of safety and convenience. They can help them stay connected to loved ones. And the access to games and features that a cell phone brings may even open your loved one’s eyes to the wonders of Candy Crush (or not). Whatever uses a senior chooses to put their cell phone toward, having one is worth it for the benefits it can bring. And cell phones that are designed for them specifically will make it that much more likely they actually put them to use and appreciate them.
Kristen Hicks
Kristen Hicks is an Austin-based copywriter and lifelong student with an ongoing curiousity to learn and explore new things. She turns that interest to researching and exploring subjects helpful to seniors and their families for SeniorAdvisor.com.
4 Comments
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I am desperately trying for set up a cell phone for my 81 year old mother, who within a years time will be completely blind. I have tried a smartphone but she becomes frustrated with it. I keep thinking there has to be some way that a blind person can using only voice activation. I purchased her a android phone and tried to work with Verizon but they don’t seem to be much help. What do you advise?
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THANKYOU FOR PROVIDING SUCH A GOOD INFORMATION AND NICE ARTICLE
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Unfortunately, one of the best mobile phones for seniors wasn’t even mentioned, the KISA phone. Unlike all the marketing and commercial advertisements, not all seniors are super active and many suffer from illnesses such as arthritis and have vision problems. All of the phones claimed to be great for seniors are little more than standard phones with large buttons but do almost nothing to address real world problems faced by seniors trying to use them. Menus are easily misconfigured by accident, volume controls are likewise too easily set to low and the displays for someone with macular degeneration make it nest to impossible to see them.
A phone for a senior that isn’t one of the bouncy types portrayed in the Consumer Celluar commercials often finds it next to impossible to use the mentioned phones and the industry has done very little to address real problems.
The people making the KISA phone actually figured out that many seniors really need something simple and useable even by those with memory, arthritis and vision problems.
How many seniors can actually figure out which way the small micro USB connectors work? Add arthritis into the mix and just how do they manage, by asking others to do for them? The KISA phone has a simple cradle that can be set in place next to a bed or on a table and the senior need only put the phone into it and it easyily within reach.
With no buttons for push, no menus to misconfigure and a GPS locator the senior gets all the benefits of having a mobile phone. Granted there are limited contacts that can be printed on the face of the phone but having something truly easy to use can give the senior something so many lack, a great way to communicate with family.
I have no interest in KISA, I happened to find it by accident because having gone through all the phones mentioned and found all of them can be accidentally mis-configured or become very difficult to use with only minor physical or mental impairments, surely someone did more than make big buttons and say that is good enough.
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Too expensive for what you get.
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