Everything online

[Words]

I've had an IT issue recently with my devices and am also pretty technophobic .

It's extremely stressful as everything- everything- is done online. I am currently reliant on a tiny iPhone.

My new tablet will need everything re in stalling and access re configuring.

I dread this and wonder how on earth older people cope.

I tried to register a new address with Hmrt by phone. It seems literally impossible.

What if you are elderly and have no online access and no help?

It's horrifying.

@ilovesooty

I think my sister and I have to help her. She had some very peculiar health problems and was found out that she has some sort of chromosomal problem when she was 70. She has officially now learning disability. You couldn't tell but she isn't the cleverest.

I agree but I think ultimately human contact will be filtered to the barest minimum. Almost everyone will work from home, robots and AI will perform the majority of manual tasks (including medical), shops will be historic curios, human babies will be grown in laboratories as will meat. GM crops will be grown in vast poly tunnels and tended by AI and every home will have fully immersive holographic entertainment systems. I suppose the only things left will possibly be restaurants and holiday resorts. Although the latter is probably in question with the push back against tourists both here and abroad. This is all assuming we don't blow ourselves up in the meantime.

It is true that computers have been around for domestic consumers for three decades or more; BUT for much of that time, they've not been essential to or dominated most of modern life and communications.

Personally, I'd liken computers in general to something like the PlayStation: they've been around for many years now, but they've never interested me in the slightest, so I've never used one and wouldn't really know how to; whereas millions of (mainly considerably younger) people find using them as natural as breathing.

Well, @DalzielOrNoDalzielAndDontPascoe that’s of course entirely your choice but you can’t then complain that things are more time consuming and difficult for you.

edit: sorry didn’t intend to quote the whole post. Techno-twit !

Haven’t you had to use them for work? It’s not about whether I’m interested in computers - I’m not, any more than I’m interested in tvs, or cars, or electric lights. They are tools and make life easier.

No, I agree. If PlayStations were the main/only means of communicating, shopping and living modern life, rather than just mainly for playing games that don't interest me, then I would make the effort to use and understand them.

I was just responding to the suggestion (as I inferred it) and pointing out that, although computers have been around for several decades, they've only really become pretty much essential for fully integrating in modern society over the last decade, decade and a half.

Moreover, I think we've seen a very interesting generational twist in the information age, whereby previously, the natural way was that older people would use and understand things first and then pass that knowledge down to younger people; whereas with computers and the internet, it's mainly the youngsters who are at the vanguard and many of the older people have been caught completely unawares, and the idea of older folk having to learn about life essentials from younger folk just seems so baffling and uncomfortable.

I agree; and yes, I personally have used computers for work and personal purposes for a very long time.

However, a lot of older people (by no means all, of course) have lived lives and done jobs where they either haven't needed computers or otherwise have been able to avoid using them.

For many people, the fact that they haven't used them before means that they have never been in the position to understand fully just how extremely useful tools computers and the Internet are, so they naturally don't know any different.

We're now in the weird position where lots of young, fit, healthy people have great convenience to do things that they could easily have done 'the old-fashioned way' even more easily; whereas a lot of elderly people who would stand to benefit far more from the convenience that modern methods could bring to them in accessing things that they may now struggle to do in the 'traditional' way are still struggling and not benefiting from it.