If you’re a senior looking for more entertaining things to do at home, it might be time to tackle that ominous computer or digital device to instigate some friendly video chats.
Before we dive into talking about what kind of activities you can participate in with friends over video chat, let’s start off with some beginners tips.
- Recruit a family member or friend to walk you through the device.
- Pick a video chat program or app.
- Run through the app tutorial.
- Play with your audio and messaging settings.
Now you’re ready, and don’t worry if there are blips during the video chat because interruptions happen all of the time.
Set up a video call, call one of your family members or friends, and try out some of these activities:
Karaoke competitions: Select some tunes and challenge each other to a karaoke night. Bring drinks and food just to add to the fun atmosphere. Either choose songs for yourself or songs for each other and turn it into a competition. You can also pick out songs to sing together.
Trivia games: Pull out the old trivia games from the closet. If you’re feeling a little more confident in your computer and internet skills, choose an online trivia game that you can both log into and track each other’s scores.
Card games: Locate your deck of cards and play a friendly game of poker, blackjack, Go-fish, or whatever card game tickles your fancy. There are also online card games available as well as online versions of popular board games.
Cooking competitions: Create a cooking competition for each other. For example, challenge each other to make a dish with only ingredients that happen to be in the cupboard at the time.
If you’re looking for something a little fancy, give each other a timeframe in which you or a loved one can shop for ingredients. Once you have finished cooking, sit down and enjoy a meal together with some video conversation.
Book club or reading books together: Choose a book that you can read on your own time, and then choose a date to video chat about the book. If you are into reading with others, choose a book that you can read together.
Art shows and competitions: Choose an online art tutorial that you can watch during the video chat and create a work of art. Then share your results with each other. If you want to up the competition, choose something that each of you have to create and then compare/contrast results.
Magic tricks: Pull up some online video tutorials to learn magic tricks (coins, cards, etc.) and show off your new skills to each other.
If you do not require activities to fill your time, an old-fashioned conversation may be just what both of you need.
These days, seniors (and individuals of all ages) are starving for human interaction after being at home alone so long.
