It’s been driving Sheila Capell crazy: Her phone keeps saying her iCloud is full and she needs to click on a link and pay up. Now.

“What is the iCloud?” Capell, 83, asked during a recent get-together at her retirement community in West Boca. “They keep sending me messages that they’re going to eliminate my videos. I hate that phone.”

Anne Goldberg, 73, a teacher and author, wants older adults like Capell to stop the hate. It’s time for the aging to embrace technology, especially smartphones, Goldberg says, for brain health, socialization skills and a sense of self-worth.

Goldberg addressed a crowd of cellphone-weary seniors on Oct. 23 at Sinai Residences, on the campus of the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County. She is the author of the newly published “Take This Phone And Shove It! A Frustrated Senior’s Guide to Smartphones” (Savvy Senior Tech LLC; $39.95). As the book cover states, it’s “Written by a Senior for Seniors.”

The Boca Raton resident has been teaching older adults to use smartphones for 12 years. Looking for a new career after working as an executive recruiter, she started the business Savvy Senior Tech to offer lessons, classes and lectures after several acquaintances called her for help using the latest technology.

There’s no question that smartphone use has skyrocketed among seniors: Only 10% had the devices in 2011, but 61% were using them by 2021, according to the Pew Research Center.

A compilation of studies published in 2022 found smartphones and computers can improve executive function and processing speed among seniors with no cognitive impairments. There’s some evidence that these machines can also help with memory in seniors with brain injuries and dementia.

But the studies also found many seniors’ lack of digital literacy, and the few accommodations smartphones make to their age, can impede them as they try to text with their families, send photos and keep up with emails.

Pages from Anne Goldberg’s new book, “Take This Phone and Shove It! A Frustrated Senior’s Guide to Smartphones,” are shown at her Boca Raton home office on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Goldberg, a mother of two and grandmother of three, owns two phones: an iPhone 16 Pro and a Samsung S25.

She said she needs two types of phones so she can better work with her students and she details how to use both brands in her book. She usually wears one at a time on a leather strap around her neck, “to lose it less often.”

After years of observing how seniors adapt to technology, she said a key to getting them focused is gentle language. She prods them with talk such as “I know you hate this, but I want you to consider this,” and “I want you to be curious.”

TIPS FOR THE PHONE-PHOBIC

Here are some tips Goldberg has culled from her experiences with phone-phobic seniors.

Get a good night’s sleep before trying to learn. Goldberg also recommends practicing deep breaths, as she said both help with memory and skill reinforcement.

Don’t be afraid of breaking the phone. She tells them it won’t blow out when they are typing a text or tapping on an app. But she also urges them not to throw it against a wall, leave it in a hot car or let it get wet.

Author Anne Goldberg assists Rhona Zemel during her presentation at Sinai Residences in West Boca on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025. (Lois Solomon/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Don’t panic if the screen changes unexpectedly. When this situation arises, Goldberg said many seniors get discouraged because they believe they did something wrong. She tells them to simply use the back arrow to return to the previous page.

Use a password manager. Passwords “are the bane of nearly every computer-using senior I’ve worked with,” Goldberg said.  The computerized manager sets up an account with a single password that stores all other passwords, and will “relieve you of the need to keep paper records,” she said.

If you feel overwhelmed, walk away for a minute or two. “Then come back with a clear head and the determination to figure this out,” she said.

To avoid being scammed, learn the clues. Don’t give personal information to strangers, be on the lookout for ungrammatical English and don’t use cryptocurrency, wire transfers or gift cards to make payments. “Any legitimate business will give you several ways to send money, and those three are never choices,” she said.

In her book, “Take This Phone and Shove It! A Frustrated Senior’s Guide to Smartphones,” Anne Goldberg offers tips such as “Don’t panic if the screen changes unexpectedly,” and “Use a password manager.” (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Go home and do it again and again. Goldberg cites a 2024 study published in Neuroscience News that showed that repetition of tasks improves recollection and the ability to perform skills automatically. “AKA you remember things!” Goldberg said.

“The sad reality is that today’s technology leaves most seniors feeling stupid,” Goldberg said. “I want to empower every senior to learn how to look for information on the internet about health, wellness and longevity, investments, travel, movies, restaurants and so much more. I want them to make a commitment to brain health.”

By MARK KENNEDY

NEW YORK (AP) — Andrew Zimmern and Barton Seaver are what you’d call seafood fanatics. Or blue food evangelists. They want us to eat more things from the water, even first thing in the morning.

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“Seafood for breakfast is delicious,” says Zimmern, a chef, writer and TV host. Seaver, a chef and National Geographic Explorer, agrees — he argues that some lean protein with omega-3 fatty acids is a great way to start the day.

“Seafood belongs in all places at all meals at all times,” Seaver says.

The two — in collaboration with the ocean food advocacy nonprofit Fed by Blue — have combined for “The Blue Food Cookbook: Delicious Recipes for a Sustainable Future,” part cookbook and part educational resource to help make food from oceans, lakes and rivers less confusing for many people.

“Seafood, categorically, is a food that needs a little help getting into more people’s diets across more demographics,” says Seaver. “That was the intent of this book — to be inviting, but also to give people a sense that, hey, maybe it’s time to look anew at seafood.”

The two use “blue food” to describe the category, which embraces more than just ocean food but also freshwater animals, as well as algae and marine plants. The authors argue that picking blue food doesn’t have to be baffling, expensive or hard to cook.

“There’s so much confusing information out there,” says Zimmern.

Labels don’t always help

Is wild caught better than farmed? Is fresh better than frozen? Zimmern and Seaver discuss the pros and cons of each, but that’s not really what they care about. The labels don’t always help: Thanks to technology on trawlers, frozen fish can be fresher than unfrozen.

More important: Where is your fish from and was it sustainably caught?

This image released by Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, shows a recipe for fish sticks on a rustic Italian salad called panzanella. (Eric Wolfinger/Harvest via AP)

“The Blue Food Cookbook” stresses that the fish at the center of any dish can be swapped out with a similar animal in the same family. If there’s no fresh, good-looking haddock at the store, try halibut or pollock.

The authors say consumers may be shying away from buying fish and marine plants because of blaring headlines about depleted oceans, labor abuses,antibiotic use and radiation. They argue those issues are dwarfed by what’s happening on land with chickens, cows and pigs.

“To be very clear, there’s a lot that we yet need to get right about seafood. But there is so much that’s also going right currently, so many innovations that we’ve created that have really opened the door to this new perspective. And that’s what Andrew and I seek to celebrate,” says Seaver.

The 145 recipes in the book go from high-brow caviar to a humble tuna noodle casserole, and bounce from North African flavors to Nashville hot catfish. One dish — a panzanella — seems to perfectly encapsulate their approach; it takes frozen, pre-made fish sticks and adds heirloom tomatoes, fennel and onion to make a new twist on a rustic Italian salad.

Zimmern recalls fondly when, in his childhood, Mrs. Paul’s frozen fish sticks started to appear, and he would dip them in mayonnaise and ketchup mixed together. “It was one of my favorite things ever,” he says. He may have become a James Beard Award-winner but he doesn’t look down on the often-derided cafeteria staple.

“Anytime we have a meal that doesn’t rely on a Big Ag version of beef, pork and chicken, we’re making a vote to save our planet,” Zimmern says. “If America ate another seafood meal a week, we would be doing such a benefit to our economy.”

Dueling recipes

The book includes cooking techniques; tips on buying fish; and must-have pantry items. There are recipe sections for bivalves, small silver fish like sardines, preserved and canned seafood, seaweed, flaky white fish like cod, the salmon family, meaty dense fish like carp, steak fish like swordfish, fillet fish like branzino, and shellfish and cephalopods, like octopus.

This image released by Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, shows cover art for “The Blue Food Cookbook: Delicious Seafood Recipes for a Sustainable Future,” by co-authors Barton Seaver and Andrew Zimmern. (Harvest via AP)

The authors offer dueling recipes for crab cakes, linguini with clam sauce and clam chowder, playfully laying out their cases for why their version is supreme.

“We both firmly believe there’s no one way to do something that’s right,” says Zimmern. “And in an effort to sort of poke fun at all of those other chefs and food writers who were like, ‘No, this is the only way to do X,’ we decided that we’re going to have multiple versions of the same things in our book.”

As for breakfast, the authors look to ideas from Japan, China, Thailand, India and even England, where smoked herring is traditionally eaten. It’s not so foreign a concept; in New York, salmon lox on a bagel is a common breakfast.

Seaver even suggests bringing seafood in for lunch at the office, an idea often considered too smelly. “There’s plenty of chilled seafood dishes in here that don’t need to be microwaved to piss off the whole floor.”

An administrative law judge has rejected a complaint filed by Peter Butler against Rick Varco, the sole remaining board member with the St. Paul DFL, alleging violations of the state’s Fair Campaign Practices Act in advance of the Nov. 4 election.

Fliers for two “Vote Yes!” campaigns photographed on Oct. 27, 2025 show that the St. Paul DFL supported both the special school district property tax levy and a charter amendment related to administrative citations. (Frederick Melo / Pioneer Press)

The Oct. 27 complaint alleged that Varco violated a provision of the act when the “Vote Yes for a Fairer St. Paul” campaign sent out a recent mailer urging voters to approve a ballot amendment to the city charter that would allow the city council to create new administrative citations, or non-criminal penalties for violations of city ordinances. Varco serves as the campaign’s treasurer.

The mailer — like another mailer in support of a school district tax levy from the “Vote Yes For Strong Schools” committee — listed the St. Paul DFL among a series of labor unions and progressive organizations supporting a “yes” vote. Butler called the label misleading, noting the citywide DFL party unit is on hiatus, has no chair or vice chair and rescinded its constitution in August.

Butler, in his complaint, “alleges that Varco knew that this claim was false when the mailer was prepared and disseminated.”

On Thursday, Judge James LaFave of the Minnesota Court of Administrative Hearings found insufficient initial or “prima facie” evidence to allow a hearing to move forward, noting nothing in Butler’s complaint showed or even alleged Varco had any involvement with creating the mailers.

“The statute specifically prohibits a ‘person or candidate’ from making a false claim,” reads the judge’s opinion. “Yet, the complaint does not allege that respondent had any direct role in preparing the content of or distributing the mailer. In fact, the complaint does not allege any connection between respondent and the making of the allegedly false claim of support.”

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Acting in place of the St. Paul DFL, the Ramsey County DFL drew together some two dozen members of St. Paul’s four DFL Senate districts for a Sept. 28 vote of support for both ballot questions. Both votes of support passed unanimously.

In addition to the school district property tax levy and the charter amendment, the St. Paul ballot will feature the mayor’s race. The election is Tuesday.

More information about the Nov. 4 election — including how to vote — can be found at twincities.com/news/politics/elections.

By TODD RICHMOND

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Find a shady spot under a tree, take a breath of fresh air and call me in the morning.

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Health care providers have long suggested stressed-out patients spend time outdoors. Now hundreds of providers are going a step further and issuing formal prescriptions to get outside. The tactic is gaining momentum as social media, political strife and wars abroad weigh on the American psyche.

Of course, no one needs a prescription to get outside, but some doctors think that issuing the advice that way helps people take it seriously.

“When I bring it up, it is almost like granting permission to do something they may see as frivolous when things seem so otherwise serious and stressful,” said Dr. Suzanne Hackenmiller, a Waterloo, Iowa, gynecologist who started issuing nature prescriptions after discovering time outdoors soothed her following her husband’s death.

Getting outdoors can improve your health

Spending time in natural areas can lower blood pressure, reduce stress hormones and boost immunity, multiple studies have found.

“Study after study says we’re wired to be out in nature,” said Dr. Brent Bauer, who serves as director of the complementary and integrative medicine program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The program focuses on practices that usually aren’t part of conventional medicine, such as meditation, acupuncture, massage and nutrition. “That’s more than just ‘Woo-woo, I think nature is cool.’ There’s actually science.”

Telling someone to go outside is one thing. The follow-through is something else. Starting about a decade ago, health care providers began formalizing suggestions to get outside through prescriptions.

Dr. Robert Zarr, who doubles as a nature guide, launched an organization called Park Rx America around 2016, offering providers protocols for prescribing nature outings. The guidelines call for talking with patients about what they like to do outside — walking, sitting under a tree, maybe just watching leaves fall — how often to do it and where to go. That all then gets included in a prescription, and Park Rx America sends patients reminders.

Nearly 2,000 providers have registered with the organization across the U.S. and a number of other countries, including Australia, Brazil, Cameroon and Spain. They’ve issued more than 7,000 nature prescriptions since 2019, said Dr. Stacy Beller Stryer, Park Rx America’s associate medical director. About 100 other organizations similar to Park Rx America have sprung up around the U.S., she said.

A nature prescription can motivate

Bauer specializes in treating CEOs and other business leaders. He said he issues about 30 nature prescriptions every year. The chief executives he treats sometimes don’t even know where to begin and a prescription can give them a jump start, he said.

“I recommend a lot of things to a lot of patients,” he said. “I’m not under the illusion all of them get enacted. When I get a prescription, someone hands me a piece of paper and says you must take this medication … I’m a lot more likely to activate that.”

Hackenmiller, the Iowa gynecologist, said she’s having more discussions with patients about getting outside as a means of escaping a world locked in perpetual conflict.

“When so many things are out of our control, it can be helpful to step away from the media and immerse ourselves in nature,” she said. “I think time in nature often resonates with people as something they have found solace in and have gravitated to in other times in their life.”

Getting outside is the important part

The effectiveness of nature prescriptions is unclear. A 2020 joint study by the U.S. Forest Service, the University of Pennsylvania and North Carolina State University concluded that more work was needed to gauge follow-through and long-term health outcomes.

But unless you’re choking on wildfire smoke or swatting swarms of mosquitoes, getting outside — no matter what motivates you — can be helpful.

FILE – In this March 5, 2020 photo, hikers head across a dune in White Sands National Park at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, file)

At William & Mary college in Williamsburg, Virginia, students issue nature prescriptions to their peers. “Patients” obtain prescriptions by filling out online applications indicating how far they’ll travel to get to a park, times they can visit, whether they need a ride and favorite outdoor activities.

Students issued an average of 22 online prescriptions per month in 2025, up from 12 per month in 2020.

Kelsey Wakiyama, a senior, grew up hiking trails around her home in Villanova, Pennsylvania, with her family and their dog, Duke. When she started her freshman year in Williamsburg, she didn’t know where to walk. She saw an advertisement for nature prescriptions in the weekly student email and eventually got one that helped her find trails near campus.

“I love the greenery,” Wakiyama said. “When you’re sitting inside — I was in the library for four hours today — the fresh air feels very nice. It calms my nervous system, definitely. I associate being outside with a lightness, a calmness, good memories. That kind of comes back to me when I’m outside.”