You've got mail, Lola Techie
Simeon Strunsky in his work No Mean City said that the people whom sons and daughters find hardest to understand are their parents, but young people can get on very well with their grandparents. And generally young people have more compassion and tenderness toward the elderly than most middle-aged adults. Perhaps, in some cases, nothing disillusions the youth about their parents so much as the seemingly callous way they sometimes treat their grandparents.
In the Philippines, better bonding between grandparents and grandchildren is not an elusive dream. It is part of our culture to take care of our grandparents, and you can be ostracized if you don’t. But in our fast-paced, multi-tasking environment, the weekend meet-ups with lolos and lolas have seemingly slackened, so that even the occasional phone call gets overtaken by a long list of other must-dos. An informal poll conducted by Bayan Telecommunications (Bayantel) via the Plurk and Facebook social networking sites reveals, though, that given the chance, 87 percent of young people would want to continue communicating with their grandparents. The same research shows that 81 percent of Filipinos are still close to their grandparents, and 57 percent still visit them from time to time.
The emergence of the Internet has made our lives more hurried as it offers a medium through which grandchildren and grandparents can keep in touch with regularity. To cite Nielsen’s Net Index Topline Report, the Philippine media landscape has rapidly morphed, allowing the Internet to gradually impinge on how we move with our professional and personal lives, and in some instances surpasses the popularity of traditional mass-media platforms. The Nielsen study predicts that the Philippines will have over 35 million Internet users in 2012 from a little over 20 million this year, and that might just alter the relationship terrain even more.
The Internet has created a generation gap. The younger set — educated, tech-savvy, single, either studying or in the prime of their careers — are using the Internet as a communications tool, specifically its more cutting-edge applications like instant messaging, social networking, blogging, and Twittering. While the youth are fully equipped to deal with the Internet’s diverse offerings and applications, the baby boomers and more mature members of society are in danger of being left behind.
Lola is a central character in most Filipino families. In the ABS-CBN teleserye Tayong Dalawa, for example, multi-awarded actress Gina Pareño essays the role of a doting but sometimes sermonizing grandma to three grandsons. Her endearing, empathetic and emotion-charged portrayal of Lola Gets created a cult following awed by her sterling performance. The soap opera is about to end, and loyal viewers couldn’t help but shed tears when she passed on after the clandestine visit of a favorite prodigal grandson, who is being chased by two forces out to get him dead or alive.
Remember Lola Obang? She has been Surf detergent’s TV commercial’s continuing character for years now, a wise lola who takes pride in what she believes to be astute choices, which she in turn passes on to her accepting daughter-in-law. This she does consistently and without fail. Talk about extreme self-confidence and a watertight resolve to bring people to her side.
And then there’s Lola Techie, the now ubiquitous presenter of Bayantel ads, who after only two months of being launched online and appearing in the mass media has gotten more than 95,000 fans on Facebook, over 5,000 community members on Multiply and almost 2,000 followers on both Twitter and Plurk, not to mention hundreds of thousands of YouTube views of her videos. The best thing about being Lola Techie’s friend is that she actually replies to messages sent to her. Unquestionably taking the Pinoy online world by storm, Lola Techie’s pitch goes beyond its novelty and coolness factor.
“Lola Techie seeks to inspire other people to find the right Internet connectivity so they can begin to enjoy the perks of communicating online,” John Rojo, Bayantel’s VP for Brand Communication, explained. From online forum discussions, blog posts and consumer talks over traditional media channels, she has emerged as everybody’s favorite TV lola, an embodiment of cool, hip wit and “I can do it” attitude — personality traits not ordinarily attached to her age group.
Lola Techie proves that seniors, if they desire to, can go online with ease — disproving the notion that the World Wide Web may just bore them or they may not have the enthusiasm and patience to be techies. In fact, Tessie Moreno, Lola Techie in real life, shares that the Internet has changed the way she connects with her friends and family. “My children do not live with me anymore so knowing how to chat with them or share pictures through Facebook and e-mails has truly helped me keep up to date with my family even if they’re far away,” she elaborated.
Recognizing the need to encourage older people to engage in newfangled technologies, Bayantel recently launched its advocacy, “Teach Lola” — an initiative working in tandem with the company’s ad campaign to bridge the communication gap between the young and the not so young. “Teach Lola is based largely on the need to strengthen relationships between two generations divided by technology. The objective is to urge the young people to teach their lolas and lolos these new wonders and, in the process, rekindle their relationships with their loved ones,” Rojo underscored. The program offers training on how to operate a computer, where to find the appropriate icons to click, how to write and manage e-mail, how to go about instant messaging, and how to navigate the intricate world of social networking sites.
The advocacy has two components: Teach Lola trainers and a website (www.teachlola.com) where anyone can download manuals for free. It now has more than 20 trainers coming from all departments in the company. “They say change begins with yourself — that’s why we are starting Teach Lola’s rollout through Bayan employees’ grandparents,” Rojo averred. “After being trained by our teaching partner Learn.ph, our trainers will be tasked to spearhead events to bring more apos and lolas together.”
Aside from recruiting more people to become trainers, Bayan will enable other people to participate in the process in a do-it-yourself fashion. It has made an online manual available in the project’s official website, www.teachlola.com, where anyone can download or even update the modules. The manual can also be user-generated as people can edit or add content to it, just like in Wikipedia. This allows more and more people nationwide and around the globe to get involved with the program.
And though bridging the generation gap is not as easy as booting the computer and asking grandma to sit and begin chatting, Filipino seniors will be happy to know that they’ve got a whole team to help them. In fact, after a learning session, one lola participant commented that her grandson now has a kaagaw (competitor) when it comes to playing online games. “After learning how to use the Internet today, I think I can take on my grandson over a game of Dota anytime,” she enthused. Without a doubt, the Internet lifestyle is no longer an unreachable concept for older Filipinos — their grandchildren will only need to invest time to teach them and make it a reality.
Our grandparents follow the old school. They may use technology joyfully or resentfully, but as a whole they look at it as something to augment the old style of doing things, not replace it. We must recognize that they thrive on a proven history of success. If we must “tech-convince” our excitement about what is new, we must not imply a disdain for what is conservative. The better way is to focus on how our sell will enhance what they have been used to.
If you still have grandparents, be thankful and give them hugs and kisses, for grandparents are meant to love and be loved in return.
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E-mail bongosorio@yahoo.com or bong_osorio@abs-cbn.com for comments, questions or suggestions. Thank you for communicating.
