BellaOnline Forums Family Senior Living Technology is baffling the elderly

I was in the bank today and an old lady in a wheel chair was trying to pay her gas bill.

The girl behind the counter said to her, "I need a bar code before you can pay this bill." The old lady asked "What, is a bar code?" Instead of explaining to her what this was she was then told she could go 'online' to pay it. The lady responded with, 'What line, what are you talking about?' When the girl behind the counter finally explained that it was the black lines on the bill that needed to be scanned so she could pay her bill, her face went bright red, she just did not have a clue what this girl was talking about. I felt so sorry for her! She left the bank without paying her bill. The old man who was pushing the wheel chair looked just as distress as her.

An old man standing behind me said loudly, "Bloody technology, half of us old folk don't understand it, the other half don't have computers. Why can't we just pay our bills like we used to?"

I appreciate that many older people are getting into computing and technology, but there are some out there, like my own mother, who do not have a clue and we are not helping them. There is no other way of paying bills these days without technology. Before, we took the bill to the gas or electricity company, handed over some money and it was done.

Life has become very complicated with technology. The young are turning into robots and the old are being left out.

My mom is 83 and my dad is 85. They will never get a computer and barely use a cell phone. My mom says customer service people are always telling her to go online or if she has an email address and they can't believe she knows nothing about computers.

Life is changing to fast, I can't imagine what people in their 80's think of this world!

I agree that it's kind of disturbing to see how young people are so glued to smart phones, etc. I'm very computer literate and have a kindle and various other gadgets but I draw the line at a smart phone. I want to get away from email, etc when I'm not on the computer. Our kids are always checking their phones when we all go out to dinner (they're in their 20's and 30's). Hard to have a conversation that way.

I totally agree. I'm pretty tech savvy and dealt with some automatons today that made want to rip my hair out. I was like speak human you friggin technophile addict.

I have had tons of clients who were not comfortable with paying their training bills via paypal or with ebanking and I was always cool with cash or check.

Do you ever wonder if the transhuman agenda is true? I often think it's happening now but then I think maybe I'm being paranoid.

I love it that I don't have to go out of my house to pay the bills or go to bank for some of my transactions. But, at times I do think that the technology that was designed to make life easier for us is making it more complicated. The same technology that is supposed to keep us connected is disconnecting us from our families.

My mother cannot even use a cellphone,but my 82 year old can at least text and call. They both won't touch a computer. We shouldn't complicate life for them.