With age comes wisdom.

Clearly, there is a lot of knowledge and experiences that grandparents can pass along to their children and grandchildren. But there's one place where young people can teach grandma and grandpa a thing or two: online.

Show your grandparents how they can use www.socialsecurity.gov to avoid unneeded trips to a Social Security office. Take them to the online Retirement Estimator, a tool that helps them figure out how much they may get in monthly benefits depending on when they retire. It's available at www.socialsecurity.gov/estimator.

You also can show them our library of online publications containing all the information they need to know on an array of Social Security, retirement, and Medicare subjects. The publications can be found at

The new www.socialsecurity.gov/pubs/index.html. If they were thinking about retirement, you may want to show them just how knowledgeable you are by suggesting they read the publication When To Start Receiving Retirement Benefits at www.socialsecurity.gov/pubs/10147.html.

Now you've done it! You've been so helpful that they've decided they're ready to retire right away. When they grab their hats and try to drag you to the local Social Security office, remind them that all they have to do is drag the mouse across the mouse pad. Take them to www.socialsecurity.gov/applyonline, where they can apply online for retirement benefits in as little as 15 minutes—that may be less time that it would have taken to lock the front door and start up the car. Once they click the "submit" button, they're done. (And so are you.)

While you're online with them, here's an excuse to visit Facebook and Twitter. Show them how to follow Social Security on both! The icons are right on our main page, www.socialsecurity.gov.

So many of the things grandparents (and even parents) may want to do at a Social Security office can be done online these days. See for yourself. Even better, help someone less web-savvy than you check it out Social Security online.

Ginny Jordan is a Public Affairs Specialist for the Social Security Administration. Her weekly column on all things Social Security appears in the Sunday Edition of the Sun-Sentinel.

Ginny has agreed to let us reprint her articles here for your convenience.

Thank you Ginny!