Grandparents are using technology to stay connected

That's a sentiment Mary Carr-McNally, 74, of Deerfield Beach, Fla., can relate to. She regularly keeps in touch with her four adult grandchildren, but primarily by phone. “They'll

text me something, and then I give them a buzz,” she says. “I'm not very good at texting, so I call them back, and then we chat.” Carr-McNally's preference for the telephone over

texting puts her in the majority. Overall, phone calls remain the most popular form of communication for grandparents, nearly half of whom say they talk with their grandchildren by phone at

least once every couple of weeks. Still, 44 percent of respondents say they're  tech savvy , with “excellent” or “above average” skills. Janet Dubuc, 67, of Swansea, Mass., would put

herself in this category. She owns a laptop, tablet  and  smartphone, and uses them to keep in touch with her four grandchildren, ages 5 to 15. With the older two, she says she tends to

text. With the two youngest, who  live  in California, she says she relies on video chatting to stay in touch between cross-country  trips,  when the family can be together in person.

"We can do a lot of things” on chats, she says. “If the kids want to see something, I walk around and show them.” She says she'll show off her garden when it's in bloom, or

start video chatting when she and her husband are out on their boat. “If we didn't have the in-between FaceTime calls,” she says, “I don't think we would have the same

relationship.” And technology can have benefits that extend to the whole family. Sheryl Stone says that she video chats with her grandchildren and shares pictures and videos of them while

visiting her mother, who is 91 and doesn't have a smartphone or computer. “She'll ask: ‘Do you have pictures for me?’ There's nothing my mom loves more,” she says.