How to Teach Older Adults to Use Computers and Smartphones Safely

Adults aged 65 and older remain the age group least likely to own a smartphone, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted between February and June 2025. The survey found that 78% of people 65 and older own a smartphone, compared with 90% of those 50 to 64 and 97% of adults 18 to 29.

That gap, combined with older adults' outsized exposure to fraud, is why structured, patient teaching methods matter. The guidance below draws on practices used by AARP's nonprofit affiliate Older Adults Technology Services (OATS), which runs the Senior Planet program, and on consumer-protection guidance from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the National Council on Aging (NCOA).

Step-by-step: how to teach the basics

1. Start with a reason, not a feature. According to OATS/Senior Planet instructors, classes work best when learners first understand why a skill matters — for example, video calls to stay in touch with family — rather than being shown a list of menu options.
2. Adjust the device before teaching. Senior Planet's own class list includes sessions dedicated to basics such as starting and stopping an app, muting sound, skipping ads, and enlarging video — settings that are easiest to fix before moving on to anything else.
3. Teach one skill at a time. Senior Planet runs roughly 50 separate weekly classes, each focused on a single task (for example, 'Smartphones at a Glance,' 'Computer Essentials,' or 'All Things Zoom') rather than combining many features into one session.
4. Let the learner do the tapping. Senior Planet classes are designed to let participants listen passively, ask questions aloud, or type questions in chat, so people can practice directly at their own comfort level instead of only watching a demonstration.
5. Practice in a group or alongside someone patient. OATS material describes trainers who 'seek out opportunities to engage people' and notes that participants often arrive early simply to socialize, which instructors treat as part of building confidence with the device.
6. Repeat the fraud-recognition routine often. Both AARP's Senior Planet fraud classes and the FTC's guidance stress a repeatable pause-and-verify habit rather than a one-time warning (see the safety section below).

Safety: what the FTC and NCOA say to teach first

The FTC's consumer guidance for scams against older adults lists impersonation of government agencies or businesses, online relationship fraud that leads to money requests, fake charges for services that are actually free, and schemes that direct victims to Bitcoin ATMs as recurring tactics. The agency states plainly that there is no legitimate reason for someone to direct a person to a Bitcoin ATM, and that its own representatives will never demand money or threaten arrest over the phone.

The FTC advises that when a message claims to be from a company, people should go directly to that company's official app or website rather than clicking a link in the email or text, and that if a call demands immediate payment, personal information, or secrecy, the safest response is to pause and verify independently before replying. The agency directs anyone who spots a scam to report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

NCOA, a nonprofit focused on aging issues, lists five scams it says most often target older adults: the grandparent/person-in-need scam, financial-services phishing that requests passwords or Social Security numbers, tech-support pop-ups that request remote device access, government-impersonation calls citing the IRS, Social Security or Medicare, and romance scams that eventually ask for money. NCOA cites data from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center showing adults 60 and older filed more than 201,000 fraud complaints with losses exceeding $7.7 billion, an increase of about 37% from the prior year; it adds that cryptocurrency-related scams alone affected roughly 42,000 victims with $4.3 billion in losses. Separately, reporting by Fox News on AARP's Senior Planet fraud classes cited FBI data putting the average loss per victim at $83,000 in the most recent year reported, a 43% rise from the year before — a different measure from NCOA's figures, since one reflects aggregate complaints and total losses while the other reflects an average per-victim loss.

A repeatable safety routine to teach

• Verify independently: call back using a number already saved in the phone or found on an official website, never a number given in the suspicious message itself (FTC).
• Never send money, gift cards or crypto to resolve an 'emergency' without confirming the request with another family member first (NCOA).
• Treat urgency and secrecy as warning signs — the FTC says legitimate agencies do not threaten immediate arrest or demand silence.
• Don't click links in unexpected texts or emails; open the company's app or website directly instead (FTC).
• Use a unique, long password or a password manager for each account, and enable the extra verification step offered by a service when available, so a stolen password alone is not enough to access an account.

Newer risk: AI-generated scams

OATS/Senior Planet has added classes on AI-enabled fraud, teaching participants to look for unnatural movements in video that may indicate a deepfake, to listen for inconsistencies in a cloned voice, and to recognize scam scripts that have been rewritten by AI tools. The program's described approach is to 'pause, think, and ask' before acting on an urgent request, and instructors reportedly encourage learners to use a chatbot as a second check on a suspicious message, without entering any personal or financial details into it.

Where to find free, structured classes

Senior Planet, run by the nonprofit OATS as an AARP affiliate, offers free classes that do not require AARP membership, delivered live online and through more than 400 partner sites, plus dedicated centers in six U.S. cities: New York City, Palo Alto, Denver, Rockville (Maryland), Plattsburgh (New York) and San Antonio. Instruction is offered in English, Spanish and Chinese, with Spanish-language offerings reported to be expanding.