By Rebecca Wiessmann

In a recent episode of Tech Tuesday, Kent Mulkey fills in while Steve is away and sits down with Liz Hamburg, president and CEO of Candoo Tech, for a conversation that should make senior living operators rethink nearly everything they assume about residents and technology.

Liz’s central point is simple: older adults aren’t rejecting technology because they can’t use it. They reject it when it isn’t designed with them in mind — or when they’re left alone to figure it out.

And the data backs her up.

Seniors Have The Devices

Liz shares that Candoo Tech surveys its users at the beginning of engagements and again every six months, building a data set that skews older than many industry studies. More than half of respondents are 80-plus, and Candoo has helped clients well into their 100s.

That matters, she argues, because broad “50-plus” surveys can blur what’s happening with people in their 70s, 80s, and beyond — the group senior living serves most directly.

What they’re seeing: residents are surrounded by technology. Liz cites industry data suggesting senior living residents often arrive with five to seven devices — a number that sounds wild until you list the basics: smartphone, tablet, laptop, printer, smart speaker, smartwatch, and suddenly seven doesn’t feel like a stretch.

Candoo’s own figures reinforce the reality that this is no longer niche. A large share of their users report having a laptop or desktop, and many are using smartphones, printers, routers, and smart-home devices. The problem isn’t access. The problem is support.

Tech Support Becomes Health Support

The conversation shifts quickly from “devices” to outcomes — especially around healthcare.

Liz describes a world where simply being a patient now requires technical competence: scheduling appointments, checking test results, messaging doctors, ordering prescriptions, uploading forms, and navigating portals. Even tech-savvy people can miss the existence of a portal entirely, the host admits — and that’s before you get to passwords, two-factor authentication, and the modern joy of “reset your credentials.”

Candoo’s work increasingly overlaps with healthcare access. Liz says they partner with health plans to create customized guides and group lessons for specific portals and apps, then back it up with one-on-one help. She emphasizes HIPAA compliance and explains that while they won’t dig into medical details, they can help older adults do the practical stuff that keeps them connected to care: logging in, resetting passwords, uploading PDFs, adding photos, and submitting documentation.

In other words, technology training is quietly becoming a social determinant of health.

Confidence Is The Real Product

Liz comes back to something her team sees over and over: capable, intelligent older adults who feel physically anxious about tech — shaking hands, racing heart, fear of “messing something up.”

So Candoo’s big goal isn’t just solving tasks. It’s increasing confidence.

She shares survey results showing major gains in confidence and increased usage after training. And she points out something that often gets missed in senior living: early pandemic tech support was dominated by basics — email, Zoom, and staying connected. Now the requests are broader, and in some ways, more surprising.

Older Adults Are Learning Instagram, Canva, And ChatGPT

Liz describes how Candoo tracks what people actually want to learn through popular how-to guides and group lesson topics. The list spans the expected (iPad basics, Uber, password managers, scanning QR codes, Zoom) and the unexpected: Instagram, TikTok basics, and even design tools like Canva.

But one detail stands out — because it says something bigger about curiosity and agency.

Older adults are requesting training on ChatGPT.

Not because someone decided it would be trendy, Liz says, but because users asked for it. They’re using it like a supercharged search engine: travel planning, gift ideas for grandkids, help with group presentations, and even support for hobby communities and activity groups.

The underlying message is clear: older adults aren’t “behind.” They’re exploring — when the on-ramp is built for them.

The Wrong Question

One of the most practical moments of the interview comes when Liz explains what changes between “won’t use technology” and “actively using technology.”

Her answer: motivation.

If you ask someone, “Do you want to use technology?” many older adults will say no — because they’ve lived decades without it and don’t see the point. But if you ask, “Do you want to see your grandchildren?” or “Do you want to hear the hymns you grew up with?” the conversation changes.

Liz tells a story about a woman in her 80s who didn’t think tech was for her — until Liz helped her find a childhood hymn on Spotify and download the sheet music as a PDF. The emotional shift is immediate. Technology stops being “a device” and becomes a doorway back into identity, memory, and joy.

Another example is even more everyday: helping an 88-year-old return shoes to Zappos. It’s not something she would call Geek Squad about, and it’s not an Apple Store problem — but it is a life problem. A short session removes days of frustration and restores a sense of competence.

That’s the kind of win operators rarely track, but residents feel deeply.

What Operators Should Do This Week

Near the end, Kent asks the question every operator wants answered: if someone watches this interview on a Monday, what should they do differently on Tuesday?

Liz doesn’t give a one-size-fits-all answer, and that’s the point. She recommends starting with visibility:

  • Survey residents: what devices do they have, what do they want, where do they get support now?
  • Check internal pain points: talk to IT, dining, the front desk, maintenance — the people who get ambushed with “quick questions.”
  • Be honest about scalability: one in-house tech person can’t cover multiple buildings, vacations, illness, and the steady drip of resident needs.

She makes a strong case that remote support — once counterintuitive to her — is often the most scalable way to deliver consistent resident tech help across communities.

And she leaves operators with an implicit challenge: if residents are arriving with five to seven devices, then “we have Wi-Fi” is not a technology strategy. It’s table stakes.

Watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/live/fk1qrRdjav0