There is actually an international NGO, Little Brothers - Friends of the Elderly [0], that exists exactly to help lonely elderly people meet others and have a new social life. There are several chapters in the USA [1].
While not very well known, it's a really old NGO, started in 1946 in Switzerland, with the US wing existing since 1959.
Absolutely. I worked very briefly and regrettably as a cold-call telemarketer and the vast majority of the people who would stay on the line were elderly and seemed to enjoy talking to a friendly person who wanted to sell them fake supplements. I still feel bad about the one sale I made.
> I wonder if there's a service where you can sign-up to be randomly connected to other elderly people.
It's not specific to elderly people but back when I used Dialup[0] many of my matches were elderly folk who just enjoyed talking to someone about what's going on in their life and telling stories about their youth.
One of the best changes of the last 20 years is the quiet you can have in your home because of the lack of landlines. It was collective insanity to have such a loud device constantly interrupting us.
I'm surprised that my older relatives, some old enough to have grown up without phones in their house, don't leap at the chance to get rid of them
My elderly in-laws have lept at the chance to get rid of landlines, only to be replaced by near constant WeChat or iMessage pings. It was this at this point that I discovered that they’re not alone and most people live with near constant mobile notification bombardment, putting almost zero effort in taming it. It took me a while to condition them to use the silence slider which they were barely aware of. Then it made me wonder if messenger apps were actually an improvement. Landlines had the advantage of being completely out of mind when you’re away from home.
Mobile phones & modern notification systems are strictly better in terms of flexibility. As you said, you can silence all notifications for arbitrary periods of time and schedule quiet times, but if you need you can still access them any time you want. Landlines' async notification channel is limited to a voicemail, which... well, it sucks.
I was sitting at a table at a sports club the other day where a young fella had put down his phone. It lit up and I saw a terrifying stack of notifications, 20+ messages per app, more apps than space on the lock screen. If I get one then I read it and it I get too many that I don't read then I stop them because they're clearly about something I'm better off reading at my leisure rather than being alerted.
My elderly mother-in-law is pretty good about the scams but the part that I can’t understand is that she treats every land line phone call as the highest priority thing in the house. She will drop everything to answer the phone.
It's what we all grew up with if you're older than about 50. The phone rings, you answer it. It's a habit. Even caller id wasn't really common, and it cost extra.
OTOH I'm in that age group. I dropped my landline a long time ago, and I never answer calls on my mobile unless the caller is in my address book. I don't have voice mail either. The habit of answering the phone was not hard to stop, there was a bit of FOMO (if you can call it that) for a while, but every time I answered such a call it was a scammer or a survey or some other nonsense so that's pretty much gone away.
Maybe for those that are truly elderly it's just something to break up the boredom of sitting at home.
> I can’t understand is that she treats every land line phone call as the highest priority thing in the house. She will drop everything to answer the phone.
I'm 30 and haven't been able to break myself of this. When I was a kid scam calls just were not a thing where I lived and if someone was calling it mattered. Absolutely nothing took priority over the phone.
> It was collective insanity to have such a loud device constantly interrupting us.
Not to mention all the bruised toes and shins from running for it. Especially prior to answering machines being ubiquitous, at the risk of dating myself.
They're bored. It's a lot of work to stand up and leave the house. Phonecalls are the most convenient and accessible human interaction they have. My grandmother loves talking to people she knows are scammers, just to ease the tedium. She's been talking to the same neighbors and children for literally fifty years otherwise.
My grandparents didn't have a phone until fairly late, but my grandfather worked irregular hours on the docks. For them a landline is the peace of mind of knowing loved ones are safe.
Mobile phones are useless because they are never charged when you need them.
You connect it to the phone line and it answers the calls and asks people who they are. At that point it lets the actual phone ring and then it tells you who is calling and do you want to accept the call or block?
Most spammers will not say who they are and just hang up.
Over time it builds up a whitelist of who to just let straight through
If they had that for cell phones I'd pay almost any amount to get that for my grandma. She really doesn't need to answer the phone unless it's us, but she does.
It's disappointing that the US government hasn't done more to stop this.
In this specific case, the author should probably see if he can get his parents put in a conservatorship. That would at least help limit the damage when one of the scams does eventually work.
STIR/SHAKEN probably has helped a bit, but the amount of times my dad has infected his phone with viruses and been "called back" by someone after a robodialer called them shows that regulating the "good guys" hasn't really stopped the bad guys much, just made their list of targets somewhat smaller.
The US government is often the source of the calls. During election season, my elderly mother's landline gets BOMBARDED with calls from politicians. "Hello! This is Representative Blah. I'm calling to let you know how terrible my opponent is..."
The other side of the coin is that even if they aren't receptive to the scams, they stop answering the phone as much, which contributes to them losing even more contact with people.
I have a half-hearted Asterisk setup. When my dad was alive, I set up an Obi110 hooked up to the phone line. I created a whitelist of numbers of family and friends. Anything not on the whitelist was answered by Asterisk, the SIT tone played, and then a message "please try your call again". Its CID was then stored in a one-entry database "greylist" so that a subsequent call from the same number would ring normally. The sheer majority of telemarketers don't call twice in a row.
When I set it up I actually fat-fingered my uncle's number on the whitelist. He got the "error message" and dutifully called right back, so I felt pretty comfortable that the system wouldn't fail terribly.
In general it's a thorny problem, especially when both parents are alive as they'll generally enable each other by insisting that business as usual is fine. Knowing what I know now, I'd try to push in harder to make changes that needed to be made, but it's so much easier said than done.
I've been thinking about doing it more basic: "Please enter the extension"
I'd make '7777' be the only "extension" that gets through. Callers that are in my contacts wouldn't even get the prompt. The doctor's office, school administrators, or any other not-a-contact-but-still-wanted caller would know what my "extension" is.
There's a huge problem in the US where custodianship is used to take advantage of senior citizens. People who can take care of themselves are often trapped, abused, and outright stolen from using that system.
However, this is the kind of case where custodianship is probably the right answer. If they're falling for a gift card scam, it may be best that a trusted loved one is given the literal and figurative keys for their own protection.
Readit News
Loneliness is a major issue for the elderly and due to culture of the time, there's a lot of resistance to do something about it.
I wonder if there's a service where you can sign-up to be randomly connected to other elderly people. Omegle for the elderly.
While not very well known, it's a really old NGO, started in 1946 in Switzerland, with the US wing existing since 1959.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Brothers_%E2%80%93_Fr...
[1] https://lbfenetwork.org/#network
It's not specific to elderly people but back when I used Dialup[0] many of my matches were elderly folk who just enjoyed talking to someone about what's going on in their life and telling stories about their youth.
[0] https://dialup.com/
I'm surprised that my older relatives, some old enough to have grown up without phones in their house, don't leap at the chance to get rid of them
OTOH I'm in that age group. I dropped my landline a long time ago, and I never answer calls on my mobile unless the caller is in my address book. I don't have voice mail either. The habit of answering the phone was not hard to stop, there was a bit of FOMO (if you can call it that) for a while, but every time I answered such a call it was a scammer or a survey or some other nonsense so that's pretty much gone away.
Maybe for those that are truly elderly it's just something to break up the boredom of sitting at home.
I'm 30 and haven't been able to break myself of this. When I was a kid scam calls just were not a thing where I lived and if someone was calling it mattered. Absolutely nothing took priority over the phone.
Not to mention all the bruised toes and shins from running for it. Especially prior to answering machines being ubiquitous, at the risk of dating myself.
You can of course just unplug the whole phone at the wall - but you have to do that for every one in the hosue.
I still keep the ringer off, but now I never answer my phone 'cause it's always in my pocket and I can't see it.
Mobile phones are useless because they are never charged when you need them.
https://www.truecall.co.uk/shop/truecall-call-blocker
You connect it to the phone line and it answers the calls and asks people who they are. At that point it lets the actual phone ring and then it tells you who is calling and do you want to accept the call or block?
Most spammers will not say who they are and just hang up.
Over time it builds up a whitelist of who to just let straight through
Its very simple
In this specific case, the author should probably see if he can get his parents put in a conservatorship. That would at least help limit the damage when one of the scams does eventually work.
I have a half-hearted Asterisk setup. When my dad was alive, I set up an Obi110 hooked up to the phone line. I created a whitelist of numbers of family and friends. Anything not on the whitelist was answered by Asterisk, the SIT tone played, and then a message "please try your call again". Its CID was then stored in a one-entry database "greylist" so that a subsequent call from the same number would ring normally. The sheer majority of telemarketers don't call twice in a row.
When I set it up I actually fat-fingered my uncle's number on the whitelist. He got the "error message" and dutifully called right back, so I felt pretty comfortable that the system wouldn't fail terribly.
In general it's a thorny problem, especially when both parents are alive as they'll generally enable each other by insisting that business as usual is fine. Knowing what I know now, I'd try to push in harder to make changes that needed to be made, but it's so much easier said than done.
"If you want to speak to Marv, press 1. If you want to speak to Pat, press 2. If you know the name of the person who lives here, press 3."
If the caller presses 3, they have to punch in the first 3 letters of the name of the person they are trying to reach.
If, instead, the caller punches in 5284, it routes the call through.
All other calls or terminated without the phone ringing.
This can also work for cellphones with a cheaper box, but takes a little more effort to configure.
I'd make '7777' be the only "extension" that gets through. Callers that are in my contacts wouldn't even get the prompt. The doctor's office, school administrators, or any other not-a-contact-but-still-wanted caller would know what my "extension" is.
I have hard time admitting it, but I think it was easier to reach people in the 90s. Between 5pm and 8pm you could just call.
However, this is the kind of case where custodianship is probably the right answer. If they're falling for a gift card scam, it may be best that a trusted loved one is given the literal and figurative keys for their own protection.