WeChat classes teach China’s elderly about digital health codes, e-payments and online scams

A smartphone training course has been set up in a Chinese city to help the elderly adjust to modern technology, such as using WeChat for more than talking

According to a 2018 survey, less than half of China’s elderly know how to use their phones to obtain essential services like online shopping or paying bills

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In a survey by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2018, less than half of the elderly asked knew how to use their phones to obtain essential services such as online shopping, settling bills and booking tickets. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 3:15pm, 11 Nov 2020Updated: 4:03pm, 11 Nov 2020

For 67-year-old Ma Chunxia, WeChat, one of China’s most popular and versatile digital platforms, was just something she used to keep in touch with her friends, despite it being able to do everything from making video calls and settling bill payments to booking hospital appointments.

That changed a few weeks ago when she took a smartphone training course at the Drum Tower Open University, a college of continuing education for the elderly in the eastern city of Nanjing in Jiangsu province.

There, she learned about online payments, how to make use of a digital health code (a system China is using to keep track of an individual’s travel and health status during the coronavirus pandemic) and, perhaps most importantly, how to avoid being scammed online.

The university dean, Ye Qingtao, told Chinese Communist Party-owned newspaper The Beijing News that the course was set up to help older people adjust to, and cope with, modern-day developments. “Technological development should not overlook the elderly,” Ye said.

China has, since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak, pushed for the rapid digitisation of its civil services. Photo: Shutterstock

Ma told The Beijing News that she found the class interesting. “My children know a lot of this stuff, but they don’t have the time or patience to teach me, so I need to ask the teachers in class,” she said. Her goal is to learn how to make hospital appointments.