Older S. Koreans using smartphones eagerly

SEOUL, South Korea - Everywhere she goes, whether it's work or the corner market, Lee Kyung Ok is on the lookout to make new friends. When the magic happens, she whips out her smartphone to exchange digits.

She's aggressive, hyper-confident in her navigation of her hipster device. She's also 63.

Lee is among the rapidly growing ranks of older South Korean technology users, veteran consumers who feel compelled to keep pace with younger residents of this restless society.

While some her age might become analogue shadows of an increasingly high-tech world, the Seoul office worker embraces the challenge.

She and her husband text each other frequently, even from the next room at home. She knows various applications to find the nearest bus stop, subway station, or hospital. She can download recipes or exchange photos with her 4-year-old grandson. "I love texting," she said. "Because it's free, I can go on and on with just about any subject."

In her fashionable blue coat and scarf, Lee is one of the advanced students in a new class being taught at a Seoul community center. Sponsored by communications provider SK Telecom, the weekly seminars are a pilot program to teach older consumers how to maneuver what for many are some mind-bending ways to let their fingers do the walking.

The company already runs similar classes at 80 locations for regular cellphones, and has taught more than 8,000 new phone users. But smartphones are one step beyond.

SK spokeswoman Irene Kim said the company began the classes after noticing how many older buyers were lining up for the phones, the latest in handheld technology that allows users to access the Internet and use newfangled applications. Many were a little slow at negotiating sharp corners on their new devices, like grannies rolling off the showroom floor in new Ferraris.

"We just heard stories from our sales staff about a lot of elderly people coming in and saying that they wanted a smartphone, even though they didn't know the first thing about using it," the twentysomething Kim said.

Lee Seung Hee, a member of SK's corporate-responsibility unit who helps operate the classes, says she knows of one 86-year-old smartphone user who sends regular texts to his sons-in-law, both in their 60s.

On one Friday afternoon, the smartphone class was wrapping up its 10-week session, during which college-age volunteers had worked one on one with more than a dozen seniors.