Ever get the feeling that mobile phones, laptops and even the humble television remote control are now smart enough to sense when an elderly person is using it?
How else do you explain why these devices consistently fail to operate properly when senior folks are using them? These confounded gadgets are taking the mickey out of us.
Hand these digital miscreants to someone younger and everything works perfectly. As a result, jokes about older adults not being able to handle modern technology are rampant – which is puzzling since we seniors have experienced more than our fair share of technological breakthroughs.
When I started work in 1980, the office had a telex machine. By typing and creating little holes on a paper ribbon, we could exchange text with other telex subscribers over local and international telephone lines.
In the blink of an eye, the telex was replaced by the facsimile machine. Just place the document on the display panel and zap it off.
At the same time, manual typewriters were being replaced by electronic typewriters. The latter suffered the same fate when computers burst onto the scene.
I was among the privileged few permitted to use the first desktop computer in our office. Rarely have I looked after a piece of equipment as delicately as I did with that first computer.
Within three decades, I had progressed from a manual to an electronic typewriter, to a bulky desktop computer, and later to a sleek laptop.
Meanwhile, the typing pool – a room of mostly women who did the typing tasks for the office – became extinct, since nearly everyone, from executives to managers and even the boss, did their own typing on their computers.
At home, we went from listening to music on radios, and then from vinyl records to cassette tapes and compact discs.
Now, with streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, people can download hits and create customised playlists of their favourite songs on their smartphones. Unfortunately, how to go about doing all of that is beyond me.
Like many older adults, I am confounded by tiny fonts, and rankled by the number of times I have to input or change my passwords. Not forgetting the little white cursor on my laptop that is fond of playing hide-and-seek.
Perhaps, my cup of technological innovations has runneth over?
Sadly, there is no escape since everyday tasks like banking or even ordering a meal at a restaurant or posting a parcel now require some degree of digital dexterity.
Darn it; I just have to try to keep pace with the new-fangled innovations that keep popping up.
By Khush Randhawa
