Ethel

Ethel, 81, laughs easily and often. Her humor and love of life are infectious, her optimism irrepressible. Asked to share her feelings about the Virtual Senior Center, Ethel is characteristically enthusiastic.

 

"The program is fantastic. As an older person, I'm amazed at the technology," says Ethel, who had never used a personal computer before volunteering for the project. "It has totally changed my life."

 

Ethel has been impressed with the built-in accessibility features in Windows as well as some of the assistive technology she has chosen to use. With no previous typing experience, Ethel found the standard QWERTY keyboard confusing, so Microsoft arranged for her to have an enlarged ABC keyboard, which she finds more logical and easier to see. Ethel uses Magnifier in Windows 7 to enlarge portions of the computer screen as a magnifying glass might, and she sometimes employs a screen reader that reads text aloud when she uses her mouse to point at certain sections of the screen.

 

Married and divorced twice, with two grown children, Ethel now lives alone (except for her cat) in a small apartment in Flushing, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, about 10 miles east of Manhattan, where she receives services from Selfhelp Community Services. Ethel worked for the U.S. Postal Service for 28 years—all but five as a supervisor—before retiring in the late 1980s. After she retired, Ethel and another woman—a friend and fellow Postal Service retiree—set out to visit all 50 states in alphabetical order. After several trips, Ethel's friend moved to Georgia and she lost her traveling companion.

 

Now that she has a computer with interactive technology in her apartment, Ethel posts video blogs, emails family members and a few friends, plays Solitaire and other games on the computer, and either observes or takes part in activities at the Selfhelp Benjamin Rosenthal Senior Center,such as tai chi, ping pong and dancing. Ethel is also an active participant in the current events discussion group, and regularly uses Skype to talk with her Selfhelp social worker.  

 

One of the things Ethel likes best about the Virtual Senior Center project is how much easier it is for her to follow the news and keep up on current events.

 

"I feel like I have arrived," she says. "I'm so much more interested in what's going on, because I can see and hear so much more with the computer than I can with radio and TV. I have so much more knowledge. I love staying informed."

 

Ethel has found that she is often better informed than most of the people who come to visit her at the apartment, and she enjoys sharing what she knows with her guests. 

 

"I've always been a talker," she says, ""but now I'm a knowledgeable talker."