How to help your grandparents online

The internet makes everything extremely accessible. Well, if you understand what’s happening. For pretty much every young person this is the case, but when we take a look at the older generations, most of the times it isn’t. Luckily you’re there to help, but soon enough you’ll realize that explaining the internet isn’t as easy as using it. In this blog we’ll give you three tips you can help your grandparents with. Get started immediately!

  1. Explain passwords

The first step to a safe internet is being able to log in. Many older people do know what a password is, but how to use it safely is a lot harder. Even a lot of young people still struggle with this, as using the same password over and over isn’t safe at all. This is something you need to teach your grandparents: switch passwords!

To make this easier for them, you can have them write down their passwords for different websites on a piece of paper, but also make sure they don’t complicate themselves too much. A password should be different for every website, but the difference can be very subtle. For example: a capitalized letter instead of a regular one, or an added symbol or number can do the job already.

  1. Explain phishing

Sadly elderly are often the victim of phishing. With this online identity theft, hackers e-mail someone and ask for their personal information. They pretend to be a service the person makes use of, which makes the e-mail more trustworthy. Once you’ve given your details, the hackers have access to your account for this service and maybe even more, depending on how many different passwords you use. There’s not a lot you can do about this, except for simply explaining to your grandparents that banks or other important websites never ask for this information over e-mail or on the phone. If you have to share your details, it will always be face-to-face.

  1. Invest in cyber security

Do you want to make sure that your grandparents are able to use the internet freely, then it is possible to invest in a cyber security service such as Onsist. These experts help your grandparents with their safety by scanning for irregular behavior. Not only does this prevent bad things from happening, it also allows your grandparents to use the internet in the exact way they want to. They don’t have to worry about anything happening to them, as Onsist makes sure this won’t happen at all.

Good luck!

Now that your grandparents are on the internet as well, they’ll be able to talk to you about every hot topic. And of course, you benefit from it as well, because who doesn’t want their grandmom on Instagram?