On the wrong side of the digital barrier
It’s not the people that worry me, it’s the machines
I was beginning to think I was becoming agoraphobic. It seemed irrational - I like going for walks, being in nature, seeing my friends. I’m comfortable, most of the time, in my local community. So what was making me more and more reluctant to get out and about?
Then, this morning, it hit me. I was standing in the supermarket queue behind someone who was locked out of their Clubcard account. They had carefully planned their purchases to take full advantage of particular discounts, something that takes quite a bit of organisation. But the computer said no, so they were stuck there, with irritated people building up behind them, while the minutes ticked by and the cashier tried to find a solution.
This, I realised, was my worst nightmare. To have a card declined in public, even if I’m carrying enough cash to get myself out of the shop, feels like being that poor character in Jane Eyre forced to go around with the word SLATTERN on a placard around her neck. Except in my case, it would say DODDERY OLD BAT WHO SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED OUT ON HER OWN.
Irrational? Of course. But it isn’t the people that scare me. You can apologise to a person, reach out for a smile, a workaround, a bit of fellow feeling, or just explain you find this sort of thing difficult. None of that is possible with a machine.
I’m 65 now, just beginning to enter the Doddery Demographic. But isn’t 80 the new 65 these days? Am I the only boomer whose mind goes completely blank when faced with a screenful of apps? Or who feels entirely misplaced shame when I’m late into a movie because my ticket got saved in the Junk file of an e-mail client I rarely use? Sometimes it feels like that.
The trouble is, once you start experiencing that lack of confidence, the ability to make your way seamlessly through the world, it starts seeping into other areas as well. Settings may seem different, but you’re being triggered just the same. No, I don’t think I’ll take that train journey. What if I book the wrong ticket, and there isn’t a person at the station to sort it out for me? What if my battery runs out when the inspector comes round? It’s surprising how scary this can feel to anyone over 60, let alone neurodiverse or challenged by some other vulnerability.
The cognitive load that these systems are dumping on us has grown exponentially in recent years, and the safeguards for anyone feeling overwhelmed by it have shrunk in direct proportion. Only last week I heard about a frightened 14 year old left stranded in a foreign airport because she missed an unexpected gate alteration. She was an unaccompanied minor and her family had done everything right - or so they thought. Tough shit, the airline said, she should have kept her eye on the departure boards. Have they never heard of the way executive function is compromised by unfamiliar surroundings and stress? Or their duty of care, for that matter?
What’s to be done? No matter how much Which magazine protests (and they do), these trends are all likely to accelerate in the next few years. The best solution would be the legal right to an analogue option in every situation, but it wouldn’t be enforced and soon that role would fall to an AI or a robot. It’s not simply about loneliness. It’s about social exclusion. For every person we see out there happily navigating the digital universe, how many are staying home because they don’t want to be a bother? More than we probably think.