Millions of elderly Brits without a smartphone or internet getting ‘left behind’ in digital age

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14951537/Millions-elderly-Brits-without-smartphone-internet-left-behind.html

by OGSyedIsEverywhere

45 comments

  1. If they don’t wanna have them, they don’t wanna have them. That’s fine.

  2. They’re also legislating and over-regulating the same tech that they don’t understand and aren’t using. Can’t say I empathise.

  3. The internet has been a part of everyday life for 25 years.

    As a society, it’s not our responsibility to manage everyone else’s lives.

    Sorry, just saw someone that doesn’t know how to drive. Going to kidnap them and force them to learn.

  4. It’s sad to see. Saw an old woman in tears other day trying to pay for her parking with machine out of order and ‘pay by app’ stuff pushed at her

  5. They’re also the types to think there’s nothing wrong with the online safety act, also have a tripled locked pension, also probably own property, what am I meant to do, feel sorry for these people?

  6. The internets been in common usage for about 30 years. It’s not that surprising that if you don’t adapt at all in 3 decades, you start getting left behind.

  7. >And 31 per cent – or 4 million elderly people – said that poor IT skills prevented them from using the internet.

    Maybe it’s easier to say this as someone who grew up in a later generation, but maybe we stop making excuses for people who won’t learn basic IT skills?

    We’re not talking about asking grannies to code here – just very simple things with very simple interfaces.

    We shouldn’t just allow people to say “oh, but I’m rubbish with computers;” (often with a weird sort of pride) as some sort of safe-phrase to hold back progress.

  8. Not much can do. Can’t force them to use it. It’s not new. My gran just point blank refuses to use a mobile even when we have bought her one, she has no computer in the house. Has internet but only because my grandad uses it for his mobile (the only tech in the house so he can get football scores etc) we only just got her a contactless debit card as she insisted on using a cash card to withdraw and pay for cash until 2024. You just can’t help some people.

  9. i feel like its less “left behind” and more “refusal to learn”

  10. >While Janet, 74, said: ‘I have given up on trying to get Dr appointments, so now just don’t bother.

    >‘Since I had a total knee replacement two months ago, I had to do without any pain relief at all as I could not contact them. And as my mobility is now severely restricted, I cannot visit them, so I just don’t go.’

    Which GP is strictly ‘online only’ for booking GP appointments? I extremely doubt there is one, in fact – GP contractors are required under the NHS (General Medical Services Contracts) Regulations to ensure patients can contact the practice by **telephone**. I understand that many elderly people struggle with technology. I’ve volunteered at my local library, helping older residents learn how to use smartphones, tablets, email, and other digital tools. But in some cases, the barrier isn’t a lack of ability or understanding, it’s outright refusal. Some people simply won’t try.

    My grandma, for example, has a perfectly good tablet. Several family members, myself included, have spent time patiently showing her how to use it. Yet she flat-out refuses to engage with it. She insists that my uncle handle everything for her, especially online banking, ever since her local bank closed. It’s not that she’s incapable; she just won’t make the effort. And I suspect she’s not alone. I think this attitude is more common than people realise. It’s not always about struggling to learn. Sometimes, it’s about refusing to even try. It’s almost as if some believe the world should stay the same just for them, and that it should revolve entirely around their needs, even as the rest of the world moves forward.

  11. Millions of young brits needing to work two jobs to afford rent, smartphone bills and the internet are getting left behind so the elderly can keep rich.

    Out of sympathy for the elderly & big companies, you got all the cash in the world and have pushed the young brits of today into a hole.

  12. I know reddit is very anti-elderly but in their defence, not everything you encounter in day to day life should require QR codes, accounts, signing up to a mailing list, access codes only available on an app (e.g. my gym) etc just for using some of the most basic services or purchasing simple things.

    I’m only 31 and even I’m starting to get fed up of apps, codes, the internet being everywhere and sometimes refusing to bother learning new functions.

  13. Its more pervasive than it seems. My phone isn’t super old, Im making posts on it now but I can’t download the app my bank provides because it’s “not compatible”. Many tech providers in my industry are refusing to help with software installed on Windows 10 systems because they “no longer support” it despite it being just the previous version of windows.

    There’s a creeping insistence in tech for you to upgrade everything immediately or they simply make things difficult for you. What does an elderly person need with an internet capable smartphone happily transmitting all their data to advertisers to be sold? They usually just want to be able to pay their bills and live without tons of admin hassling them. Honestly I want the same thing.

  14. Online is great for a lot of things but it’s being pushed too far.

    Oh and chatbots can get in the bin

  15. Web Developer here: every time we make service online only, we’ve excluding someone, and not just people who don’t *want* to learn.

    * People with learning disabilities
    * People with severe dyslexia
    * Blind people (Screen Reader Accessibility has gone backwards in the last decade, mainly due to poor implementations of React).
    * People who can’t afford a smartphone, or can’t afford to keep it topped up with data.

    Digital exclusion is real, and it’s a real problem.

  16. They’ll be up the creek trying to understand the Online Safety Act then.

    Ripe for scammers. Then there’s all the “Tech Support” scams, and the emails saying their computer has been breached for ransom, genuine ransomware, trojans, fake applications with SEO, and all the social media conning them out of their personal details.

    They’re better off with dumb phones and no internet, really, because antivirus and antimalware won’t protect them.

  17. Working in a customer facing role is alot of the time helping old people use their own mobile phones.

    I’m sorry our app isn’t working properly for you, is it because you don’t know how to check your own emails? No I don’t know what your password is.

  18. What about people that choose not to have a smart phone?

  19. My grandfather passed 6 years ago. He was 91 years old.

    He was the most tech savvy person in my family. When the internet came along he read as many magazines about how to use it and would pass this on to the rest of the family.

    I think I was the only one to listen to him, the rest of my family are absolutely useless when it comes to using any technology.

  20. I’m quite looking forward to retirement and throttling back on my participation in the ‘digital age’

  21. It’s interesting because on one hand I have the view that it’s not the governments job to pander.

    On the other hand I genuinely do feel sorry for people.

    I’m in my late 30s, and my family were REALLY early adopters. We had a PC at home from about 1993 onwards. At that time, I was essentially the only person in my class who had one, but even by the time we went to secondary school in 1999 it wasn’t normal for everyone to have a computer. Even at University, plenty of my classmates didn’t have their own laptop or computer, and plenty had to use the library computers.

    I think we’re either really bad at remembered when things became commonplace (my phone had buttons until 2012), or imagining what it’s like not being able to use or do something, and the overwhelming task of having to learn to do it.

  22. Me and my family have all relocated up north and my Dad needs a job for his sanity and he is really struggling with the internet based application processes. He’s 68 and for British Airways for 35 years. Like, he was invited to a webinar as part of a interview process and he is googling and asking me what a webinar is.

    Obviously I’m doing what I can to help him, but it’s just an entirely new language for him and it’s hard to watch.

  23. There seems to be a few anti empathy people in the comments.

    I was on the internet before some of you knew the internet existed.

    You were able to catch up because you were young. But for many older people technology is from another world.

    There needs to be alternative support for vulnerable groups, including disabled people who have also been pushed to the side – even though that’s against the law.

  24. I’ve argued against a parking fine because my father in law can’t use a smart phone and their phone to pay service was down. We lost. Ageism/ableism at it’s finest

  25. I have a customer that still doesn’t have central heating because her husband never believed in it… he died 15 years ago and she still doesn’t want it. She’ll even get it completely free on the grants and get she refuses.
    “I’ll be dead before it benefits me” she first said to me 7 years ago…

    She’s happy with her gas fires and then moaning to fuck when it’s too cold in winter.

  26. I’m a software engineer and even I feel like I keep getting left behind.

    It’s unacceptable for major services to claim they are keeping up with the digital age, and then releasing a shitty unoptimized webapp that requires a new iPhone or Windows 10 to run on. Most online users in the UK have neither. Even more worringly are sites that fail to work on any browser other than Google Chrome. And slightly less worse, websites that fail to run on a browser release not released within the past year because it uses some shitty bloated framework for no reason that shits the bed due to lack of version control.

    Government services, NHS services, local GP, heck even utility companies, are all guilty of pushing out these backwards bloated abominations that most users cant even access on their perfectly working modern devices.

    It’s unfair for commenters to call out “old people” for refusing to adapt. We should be calling out the companies for refusing to adhere to established basic web standards that they should have learned and codified 25 years ago. Why did my fucking GP Surgery website force redirect asking me to update my browser when the browser update is a 5th decimal update that fixes a UI bug? Those are the questions we should be asking. Incompetence masked as superiority.

    Although conversely, out of sheer spite, instead of updating I did what I needed to do through the dev console. So perhaps my opinions are a little skewed.

    Regardless I have more sympthathy for the average person forced to use these garbage webapps than the people shitting them out. People who refuse to engage with tech or read the fucking screen are infuriating to deal with IMO, but how can we expect people to learn computer literacy when there are no standards followed to learn, webapps slower and more popups than a 2000s backwater webpage, and forced unnecessary updates to their software and hardware that changes the GUI so often that you basically have a different interface every few years or so?

  27. Obviously this is only a small sample size but where I live in Cumbria there is often no mobile signal and age-wise it trends elderly. I have helped older neighbours who don’t own a phone or PC with printing things for example.

    Banks here have all closed very quickly too so people are forced online for banking but if you are 80 years old and five years ago you could walk into a bank which is now closed, it does make life difficult. Coupled with cuts to rural bus services too, and there is a generation of people who are being isolated by rapid societal changes.

  28. When I was in sixth form we had one afternoon a week that was volunteer work instead of lessons (or, you could book your driving lessons during it).

    I did “silver surfers”, which was teaching pensioners basic computer and Internet skills. It could be tricky, especially with things like double clicking and motor skills, but they wanted to learn. This was maybe 15 years ago.

    Some just refuse to learn.

  29. Maybe they’ve got it right to avoid it. The downfall of the internet is in full swing.

  30. Young people are not learning to drive in greater numbers than before.

    It’s ’too difficult, too expensive, I don’t need to because someone else will drive me’

    Possibly the same mindset that applies to older people and the internet. But in the same way in the future it may come back to bite you.

  31. It’s on them really. Not like the Internet and smartphones haven’t been around for a while

  32. the elephant in the room is the onset of Alzheimer’s It doesnt matter how many smart phones, pcs and email accounts they have then – nor how long they’ve had them for

    forgetting passwords, and memorable words especially when its 3rd 7th 9th character type inputs (where just keeping track of how far along the word they’ve counted becomes a task in itself)

    2 factor authentication, 

    involved procedures, 

    “please wait a moment If you are not directed to the next screen click here” 
    A ‘moment’ becomes one or two seconds Not the “give this a full minute or two” that other people would interpret it as. 

    The more familiar/comfortable they were in the past the more difficult it becomes – people for whom managing  multiple accounts (ones for paying bills,  ones for savings, ones for pensions etc coming in) was second nature

    suddenly that turns into
    suspended logins, frozen accounts, inability to manage any payments that relied on manual intervention each month etc

    the whole system then breaks down very quickly

  33. Who writes these things?! My grandma was able to handle an iPad before she passed away and had understanding of concept of an email too. At 92.

  34. My grandad “oh I hate those things, I’d NEVER have one for love nor money”

    Ten minutes later

    “Oh can you look up this aircraft crash that happened on this date? *shows him video of the crash, the location on google maps, and the Wikipedia article* WOW it’s all on there isn’t it?”

  36. I have to show 50+ year olds at work how to attach files to emails. They get paid double what I do.

    I do not care that they’re getting left behind when they’re babied through everything at my expense and come out better for it.

    I can barely afford my electricity and I can do all of this. They can afford to learn computers.

  37. Quick! Another £250 “Mobile Technology Learning Supplement” to everyone of pension age!

    (The wealthiest cohort in society who have had decades to learn technology, just like they’ve had decades to plan for how they’ll fund their retirement)

  38. Realistically they’ll no be here soon, they’ve had 30 years to digitally integrate, not our fault they’ve chosen not to.

    The people my age who don’t understand them, that’s just sad. We can’t keep leaving things shit for the people who don’t want to move with the times – we need to drag them into the new millennium…

  39. The Internet has been around for nearly 30 years, they had/have every chance to get used to it. Just refused to learn

  40. There Lazy… My 90 year old gran was the one that introduced me to computers in the 90’s. She also got me on WhatsApp about two years after it came out. As she didn’t wanna be paying long distance call prices ringing us from Spain.

  41. My father is mid 70s, he bought a Sinclair ZX 81 in kit form back in the day, some time ago he bought some software for his lathe as it was buggy he decompiled it, fixed the bugs and sent to source code to the guy who wrote it.

  42. People should be allowed to not want to use modern technology, and I’m starting to think they may have a point, now.

    We would all benefit by re-adopting certain older technologies and systems, given that the people in charge are looking to kill the internet as we know it.

  43. There really isn’t an excuse anymore. Even before both my 80 something grandparents passed away a couple years ago, they were getting very familiar with the latest Samsung phones and Nintendo Switches.

    They just don’t want to learn it, simple as that. If they’re allowed to call the young generations lazy and entitled, I say we’re allowed to call them lazy and entitled for refusing to learn what’s been part of life for 20+ years now.

  44. Take their own medicine and “just work harder”, apparently. That’s the advice and zero sympathy they give to us when we are left to struggle in the world they left us; now they live in our world. The future is now, old man.

  45. I’m a middle-aged Brit and wish I didn’t have a smartphone or the internet!

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