Something Positive: The Teens Teaching Grandma to Google | Proof That Change Is Possible

Why this story matters: While challenges remain, stories like this demonstrate that constructive action can make a real difference.

Quick summary: This story highlights recent developments related to civic engagement, showing how constructive action can lead to meaningful results.

It’s three o’clock on a cold Budapest afternoon, and the sun is already dropping low on the horizon as 64-year-old Györgyi Petik Kis briskly makes her way to the Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library. A beautiful neo-baroque palace, the building is home to the Hungarian capital’s largest public collection of books. But Kis is here neither to read nor to sightsee. Past a busy, bright courtyard, she takes the elevator to the music section, where a couple of teenagers and two older men are waiting. They all sit around tables as the Netrevalók session begins.

Over two hours once a month, these sessions bring together older people who need help with “techie stuff” and the generation that can do this best — high school teens. Depending on the interest and needs of the seniors, the students help with things like social media, internet safety, e-book downloads, online ticket purchases, even AI usage.

“I’m very enthusiastic about doing online things, but didn’t have too much self confidence doing them on my own as I don’t speak English,” Kis says. “I was afraid to click on things. What if I messed up?”

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Kis learned to use Google Translate in one Netrevalók session and says she is excited by the possibilities it offers: “This is a new asset for me. I knew that Google Translate existed, but didn’t know that I can take photos of text and it will translate for me.”

Nearby, a teen is helping one of the older men, but has to regularly repeat instructions as the person she’s assisting is struggling to grasp them. Virág Bartucz from the Ervin Szabó Library, who supervises the program, says she is often surprised by how unfamiliar the digital world can feel to older people in Hungary.

“Some can’t register for programs and concerts as they don’t have email addresses, others need help to copy and paste text, and many don’t know how to connect to the wifi with their phones,” Bartucz says. She adds that, while going digital can make things more inclusive for many, “for the elderly, it excludes them.”

The Netrevalók program was launched in Budapest and seven regions across the country in 2019 by the Hungarian telecom company Magyar Telekom. In 2023, they partnered with the Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library. Nationally, the initiative has reached approximately 59,000 participants: 6,900 face-to-face and 52,100 online. In the capital, the project now runs in 25 designated library branches in collaboration with city high schools, whose students compulsorily need to clock up 50 hours of community service.

But it feels like what’s going on here goes far beyond teaching seniors some tech skills — the teenage mentors offer a glimpse of the digital world that they inhabit to individuals who were born in an offline era, while learning patience and compassion, and getting a chance to find out more about the lives of those they may not otherwise get a chance to encounter regularly. Participating in the program, it seems, is having an impact on both the mentees and mentors in fundamental ways.

When Kis was 30, an accident left her in a coma for four years. “When I awoke, I had to learn everything all over again. Even now, keeping my brain stimulated is a medical necessity,” she says. A veterinary assistant and award-winning greyhound trainer, Kis says she has a full life but adds, “without knowing how to properly use the internet, I feel cut off.”

She is not alone. Older adults are vulnerable to digital isolation, and Hungary has seen year-on-year growth in the number of people over 65, from 15.6 percent of the population in 2005 to 20.9 percent today. While the number of internet users in the 15-50 age group is 97.1 percent, the opposite is true for those over age 80, of whom 90 percent do not use the internet at all.

With the record emigration rates that the country is seeing, especially among the youth and middle-aged (Hungary’s Central Statistical Office states that more than 41,000 Hungarians emigrated in 2024, up from just over 19,300 in 2020), older people can end up left behind and become even more isolated.

“A lot of older people live alone in the country because their kids and grandkids have moved to other countries,” says Tamás Bedekovits, head of Ervin Szabó’s reading service department. The lack of familiarity with technology adds to their isolation, adds Kis, who volunteers in an old age home.

Isolation and loneliness substantially increases the risk of dementia; by over 30 percent, according to one recent study. But contrary to the notion of “digital dementia,” which holds that a lifetime of technology exposure can worsen cognitive abilities, being wired could actually help older people reduce their risk of cognitive decline.

In 2025, researchers in Texas published an analysis of 57 studies across the world involving more than 411,000 seniors that focused on general digital technology use in older adults (over age 50) and a cognitive or dementia diagnosis. They found that digital technology use was correlated with a 58 percent lower risk of cognitive impairment in older adults.

Michael Scullin, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University in Texas, who co-authored the analysis, says that learning to use digital devices poses cognitive challenges that can be mentally stimulating, and changes in hardware and software mean that the users need to constantly exercise their brains to stay abreast of developments.

Scullin’s research further posits that being digitally connected via email, texting and video calling can possibly reduce social isolation. Digital devices can also aid prospective memory, or our ability to remember to perform tasks in the future, such as attending appointments, taking medication and remembering birthdays, through the use of alarms, timers and digital calendars.

When it comes to combating social isolation, the benefits of the Netrevalók sessions are undeniable. Bedekovits and Bartucz say that most Netrevalók sessions are as much about conversations between generations as they are about digital learning. And Kis, who is single and has had few opportunities to get to know many teenagers, says: “I learn about them and their lives through these sessions […] I get to know how they think, and am very entertained!”

For the participating teens, there’s also an important social aspect. “There’s one guy who comes quite often and he is full of questions about our lives, like what we’re learning, what we like and stuff,” says 19-year-old Inbar Fruchter, who has been volunteering with the Netrevalók program for over a year with her twin brother Sagie. “He always says how grateful he is for this program. It feels really great to talk, and I think that’s something I don’t take for granted.”

For her brother, the program has given him insights into a generation he says he previously knew little about. “I’d never thought of how different, and how difficult, today’s world must seem to those who weren’t born in the digital age,” he says. “Talking to [the people who come along to the tech sessions] is like I’ve gone back in time.”

The twins say they now realize that many tech tasks that they perform without thinking are actually not very intuitive. “Look at Gmail, for example,” [Inbar] Fruchter says. “I realized when I was in a Netrevalók session, that finding the button to click for writing a new mail is actually pretty hard […] If I could talk to Google, I’d say ‘hey, you need to make this more accessible.’” The twins are two of the volunteers who choose to come back after their compulsory hours of service have been completed.

Such inter-generational interactions help develop the capacity for so-called “transcendent” thinking, which is the cognitive ability to move beyond concrete, immediate perspectives to analyze situations for deeper, abstract meaning, such as ethical implications, fostering greater empathy in the process. A California-based program, Sages & Seekers, has been bringing teens and older adults together to share meaningful conversations since 2009. Researchers who studied the initiative found that participation in the program helped give teens a greater sense of purpose.

Obviously, the mindset of the teenage and senior participants plays a role in what they take away from Netrevalók sessions. The twins share that not all their friends are “into” the program like they are. Kis, too, has come across teens “who volunteer not because they want to, but because they need the hours for school.” Also, Netrevalók has no way of keeping track of their older attendees outside the sessions, something that could foster even deeper social and emotional connections.

In turn, not all digital use is necessarily beneficial. “A good rule of thumb is to ask whether an activity makes one physically sedentary and mentally passive, as can occur with mindless scrolling or binge watching of videos. If so, then you want to limit those activities,” Scullin says. “Even if all your digital activities make you feel mentally challenged and socially connected, it’s still wise to build in screen limits each day so that you are still spending plenty of time connecting with people face-to-face, spending time outside in natural sunlight, and getting physical exercise.”

While researchers like Scullin work to determine exactly how much screen time offers the optimal benefits to seniors, Bartucz continues to report a steady stream of young volunteers for the Netrevalók program. And as for Sagie Fruchter, who wants to study computer science when he goes to university, he says Netrevalók has given him ideas for the future. “I’d like to research and design user interfaces for people who are challenged by technology,” he says. “And I’ve learnt that I should run any new programs I develop by people from older generations too, just to make sure they are accessible to everyone, not just people like me.”

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