The social distancing required during the current COVID-19 pandemic can have the unintended consequence of social isolation, especially for seniors.

One thing that you can do to cope with any feelings of isolation is engage in some online learning.

Today, in our blog we’re going to outline some of the benefits and how it works.

Benefits

Online learning offers many benefits for people of all ages, but especially for seniors.

1. It’s cheaper than attending classes in person.

2. Many classes are available for free.

3. Access is easy through a smartphone, a tablet, or a computer.

4. You can access classes when it suits you.

5. But the biggest benefit of taking classes is that it’s good for your mind.

As people age, most things slow down such as physical and mental acuity. Taking classes stimulates the mind. An enriched learning environment can slow that down.

Furthermore, the speed of computers and the internet can make up for the slowing down of other parts of learning. Computers can be optimized to make things easy to see, easy to hear, or easy to replay, for example.

While your reaction time may be slowing down, the quick reaction time of your device can make up for that. The brain, however, is plastic.

And you can learn new things and improve brain function at any age—like with online classes.

Where to Take Classes

Free classes are everywhere. Even Harvard has a bunch of free classes. Just Google free classes, and you’ll find they’re all around: Coursera, edX, Kadenze, DataCamp, are just a few ideas.

You can take university classes, hobby classes, classes on absolutely any subject you can think of. You can learn on YouTube. Anything. There are hundreds of videos there just on how to restring an acoustic guitar using different methods.

The point here is that you can do university classes for or not for credit, art classes, cooking classes, computer classes, business classes, just whatever you can think of.

By the way, if you want to take university courses for credit, most schools discount tuition for seniors, and many schools waive the tuition altogether.

What Do You Need to Take Classes?

All you need is a computer or access to one, or a tablet or a smartphone, and access to the internet. That’s it. We want our resident seniors to have happy and healthy lives, and we will do our best to help you weather this pandemic.

Taking online classes is a great way to exercise your brain, occupy your time, and help you to feel less isolated.