It\u2019s not only young people whose gaze is fixed on tiny screens. But for these users in Tokyo, clicking and scrolling is anything but second nature.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t deal with all of the apps that jump out at me,\u201d says one. \u201cHow do I know if I\u2019ve definitely ended a call?\u201d asks another.<\/p>\n
They are common concerns among the four women and one man attending a beginner\u2019s smartphone<\/a> class at a public facility for older residents in Nerima in the Japanese capital\u2019s north-west suburbs.<\/p>\n In Yasushi Nishioka, they have a patient guide to navigating the myriad functions and settings that can make the smartphone a portal into a new world of hyper-connectivity, but also a vortex for digital dystopia.<\/p>\n \u201cPlease don\u2019t feel like you need to remember everything,\u201d says Nishioka, a retired programmer for an IT company. \u201cIt\u2019s just a question of holding it in your hand and getting used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n Yasushi Nishioka guides his students, most of them in their 70s, at the smartphone training session in Nerima, Tokyo. Photograph: Justin McCurry\/The Guardian<\/p>\n The participants, most of whom are in their 70s, say they are intimidated by their devices \u2013 three iPhones and two Android handsets. But they are determined not to spend their later years in analogue isolation after the closure of Japan<\/a>\u2019s 3G network.<\/p>\n The country\u2019s telecom companies have gradually plunged older networks into darkness. The 2G service had completely shut down by 2012 and by 2022 au, a popular carrier, no longer offered 3G, with rival SoftBank following suit in 2024. At the end of March, NTT Docomo became the last to pull the 3G plug, citing the need to retire inefficient base stations to reduce electricity consumption.<\/p>\n While some flip phones are still compatible with 4G, the move affected an estimated half a million people and more than 400 phone models, as well as early car navigation systems, vending machines that rely on 3G for cashless payment systems and unstaffed car parks that use the network for remote management, according to the Mainichi Shimbun news site.<\/p>\n The smartphone beginners were taken through the functions and settings of their devices, including volume control and online payments. Photograph: Justin McCurry\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Docomo and other carriers are helping subscribers \u2013 a mixture of stubborn flip phone users and the smartphone anxious \u2013 by offering classes that include sessions on taking photos and video and shopping safely online.<\/p>\n Unless they embrace the smartphone, which works only on 4G and 5G networks, flip phone loyalists will lose their voice-call and email functions and have their contracts cancelled along with their phone numbers.<\/p>\n Japan\u2019s garakei phones \u2013 a combination of Gal\u00e1pagos, in reference to their availability only for the domestic market, and keitai denwa, meaning mobile phone \u2013 were ubiquitous before the first iPhone was released here in 2008.<\/p>\n Yasushi Nishioka\u2019s mature students were especially interested in how to use health trackers and weather forecasts. Photograph: Justin McCurry\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Today, over the course of two hours, Nishioka guides his students through the basics: how to turn their phones on and off and control the volume, along with tips on scrolling and pinching in and out. He then turns to cashless payments and QR codes and \u2013 two subjects of common interest among the participants \u2013 health trackers and weather forecasts.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you use your phone only for admin it will quickly get boring,\u201d he says, promising that next week\u2019s session will delve into entertainment, social media and photo and video content.<\/p>\n All of the participants raise concerns about security \u2013 a growing problem in Japan<\/a>, whose large population of over-65s are often the target of online scams. \u201cIf you have any doubts at all, just ignore the message or call,\u201d Nishioka suggests, before sharing an app that filters out suspicious contacts.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I bought my smartphone I turned it on and the number of icons was so confusing I had no idea what to do,\u201d says Hiroko Kanda, a class participant. \u201cIt\u2019s taking me a while to get used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n Another, who preferred not to give her name, reluctantly bought her first smartphone three months ago. \u201cI didn\u2019t have the confidence to make the switch,\u201d she says, her flip phone resting next to her iPhone. \u201cI still use my garakei on 4G \u2026 but I really like the weather and travel planner apps on my new phone.\u201d<\/p>\n Their reasons for taking the plunge aren\u2019t wildly different to those that keep younger people umbilically attached to their devices: reserving tickets for musicals, joining WhatsApp groups, learning a foreign language and making travel plans.<\/p>\n \u201cOf all the things that annoy people about smartphones and often makes them quit, one really stands out,\u201d says Nishioka, before revealing a grievance that unites users, novice and experienced, across the generations: \u201cManaging their passwords<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not only young people whose gaze is fixed on tiny screens. But for these users in Tokyo,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[342,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-383802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-mobile","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}