Is modern technology leaving older people behind?

National World - LocalTV

In an ever-changing, fast-paced world, we look at how modern technology may be hard to keep up with for the elderly, and see if there's anything that can be done to help bridge the gap.

Transcript

00:00It's hard to remember there was a time before the internet and sort of online payments when

00:04you had to go to banks and paychecks and whatever else. All of that has happened in sort of a

00:09generation. These days, you have to sort of log in. So there's passwords, which of course requires

00:14memory. And of course, we're always told that you have different passwords for everything that you

00:18use. It's a complicated world. And as we sort of grow older, we become sort of fearful of these

00:25things. We're fearful of change. Now, of course, you can always get people to help you out with

00:29doing things. But of course, that's not ideal because often in order to sort of veil of sort

00:33of latest deals online, you have to be sort of able to react fairly instantaneously because these

00:38things come and go very sort of quickly. But of course, the big issue is health. Increasingly,

00:44we're moving to a sort of a world where your sort of diagnosis is done online. Even getting to see

00:50a sort of a GP or sort of getting into the health system requires you to be part of the sort of the

00:55system, so to speak. If you're not part of the system, you're somehow excluded, which is highly

01:00sort of problematic for sort of those parts of the community that don't have the sort of the

01:05ability to sort of gain online access and to use it on a daily basis.

01:11Is there a real danger that all people genuinely could be left behind and quite vulnerable with these

01:15sorts of circumstances then?

01:17You somehow try and make sort of the technology much more sort of intuitive, which of course it is.

01:22You know, the computers are sort of, you switch them on and most applications are fairly easy

01:26to download. But hey, I say that as someone who uses technology in my daily life. But for some

01:31people, you know, that's not something they're used to and they just, you know, they don't get with

01:35it. And perhaps they're so far behind that even catching up now, it would just become a sort of

01:39an utterly frightening prospect. So undoubtedly is a problem. It's something I'm sure that sort of the

01:44government are well aware of. But of course, they are part of sort of the move to sort of to make us

01:48more reliant and not less so on the or in the online world.

01:53Do you see any way going forward where things might improve for older people?

02:00It's about constant education. But of course, as we know, education ceases at a certain age and sort

02:05of beyond that, you're kind of left on your own. And indeed, you know, one of the things I remember

02:09when I was growing up, there used to be lots of adult education courses. And maybe that that's

02:13something that sort of the local colleges, they put courses on quite precisely for sort

02:18of people to sort of learn about this. And as I say, the sort of the the progress of technology

02:23is a good thing. But of course, there is a downside for those who sort of can't access it.

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