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Jane Kelly, writes for the Spectator and the Salisbury Review observes, SORRY, you’re not on our books’, said a voice from among the girls huddled behind the front desk in my hairdresser’s. ‘You didn’t confirm by text.
Photo: The Conservative Woman
‘I’ve been a customer here for six years,’ I pleaded, but the appointment was off and they couldn’t offer me another.
I called on a neighbour aged 95, who waved a two-page letter from the Co-op telling her she couldn’t redeem her dividend of £5, which had probably taken years to accrue, without a smartphone. I realised dismally that although born 30 years apart, we were connected in a generational struggle. It’s even got a name: ‘The grey digital divide’.
‘Mobile’ used to be associated with walking frames and stairlifts. Now it means the necessity of carrying a phone everywhere simply to manage the basic business of life. This year, my neighbour had to apply specifically for a paper census form, or rather I did as no one at National Statistics answered the phone. I can see the benefits of this shift, noticeable since the pandemic – it’s now possible to buy a car online from a well-spoken robot rather than facing a dissembling oik. I was pleased when my decorator asked to be paid by BACS transfer rather than cash (it signified honesty), but for many of us, the rapid change has meant loss...
The elderly are an obstacle to the rapid development of this ‘Information Society’ which also promises to remove the old social barriers with its e-based services; after all robots, so far, come without class, race or sex, now called ‘gender’. Old crocks left behind will find a drop in their living conditions as they become more helpless, confused and isolated. It’s unlikely that, unless like many of the ‘vaccine hesitant’ they are in the black and Asian community, they will attract local authority or government support to get them back into the mainstream of life. They are unrepresented by any furious identity group.
Source: The Conservative Woman
