Teaching your grandma to use emojis is a small job. Watching her send a heart to her sister is a huge one.

The gap between what twenty minutes costs you and what it opens for somebody else can be enormous. Showing an older relative how something works is trivial from where you sit, and on the other side it is a whole channel of contact with people she could not easily reach. The point is not that you helped. The point is that afterward she can do it herself, whenever she likes, without waiting for you.

Spend twenty minutes teaching one person one thing on their phone. Go at their pace, let them press the buttons, write the steps down. Then leave, because the good part happens after you are gone.