Why do older people have to dislike change.

I am happy to embrace change if I need to, or if it benefits me and those around me. I don’t understand those who dig their heels in and refuse, though for some it is too difficult.

Since my husband died recently I have been able to speed things up by scanning and sending documents online. That’s really useful. But because so much is digitised, I struggle to get to speak to a human being at times, which is a nuisance when one’s circumstances don’t fit the tick boxes.

I have been trying to track down his various accounts and subscriptions, mostly related to online companies, who only communicate digitally. I have found out about some because an email has told him that a payment has failed, so I follow that up, but when I close his phone account I won’t know!

His phone, although a smartphone and fairly up to date, is very tiny and I struggle to read the small print and to use a tiny keyboard, so I end up making a lot of mistakes. I am not thick or lazy or unwilling to learn, but it is driving me round the bend and I long for more traditional communications.

Reading this thread brought to mind an incident in 1971, a couple of days after this country switched to decimal coinage.

I was in my early 20s and waiting at a supermarket checkout. The customer in front of me, probably 70-something, bagged up her purchases and the cashier asked for "three pounds forty five, please" (or some such total). The customer rummaged in a large purse, sighed, and then tipped the entire contents on the conveyor, saying to the cashier. "Oh, take what you need out of that. I can't be doing with this new money. Why can't they wait 'til all us old people are dead before they make these changes?"

Watching the checkout operator taking the correct money and the helping the customer gather up her remaining change, I remember thinking, " Gosh! I hope I never get like that."
(I don't think I have).

I've found that even young people can dislike change - or refuse to adapt. It's more to do with personality than age - although more are 'set in their ways' in their later years. They then expect help with the many things they 'can't' (won't) do. I'm quite happy to teach someone how to do things but can't stand a lazy refusal to even engage with it.

Hetty58
That’s my problem refusal to engage
But they want you to engage when they can’t buy something not in the shops.

I so agree with you OP. I have 5 friends who I go away with for weekends and they are all bright, clever, articulate women in their 60’s and 70’s. Not one of them has embraced the internet, has online banking set up etc and they all say that that they can’t do it or don’t trust new technology. One won’t even use contactless payments. This means that I’m the one who has to book the breaks, sort the train tickets, collect cash to pay etc and it drives me nuts, as they are all perfectly capable of doing it if they wanted to! Even most of my husbands old codger mates do online banking. It’s adds so much to my life that I think it’s a shame.

Baggs

Some people find learning (anything!) harder than others.

I think it's that simple.

It's easy to be scathing about people not "embracing change" if you don't find it hard. What if you did find it hard?

Stop being judgmental.

Agree Baggs some very smug posts on here.

I also agree with your second post that not all change is good.

I used to pay the man at the carpark gate the fee as I exited. t
Then I paid a ticket machine before I entered the carpark so I had to estimate the length of my stay.
Then I paid by card, before I entered the car park.
Now I have to pay by phone, using an app.
Now I have pay by phone using an app and am charged 40p extra for the privilege.
This may be progress but for whom?

Progress =/ business rules on fees

Two completely different things

My daycare charges a fee for paying online (3rd party processor) vs via check

I pick check for obvious reasons

Those I know who do not embrace IT have 2 things in common
1. No work background that included computers.
2. No (very) regular contact with family members who could support their learning.

I love change it takes away the boredom

Wouldn't be without my spreadsheets as back up. Absolutely love them and they do such a lot of precise projected calculations in two seconds flat.
Always fascinated/impressed me from day one many years ago. Oh yessss......

sodapop

Baggs

Some people find learning (anything!) harder than others.

I think it's that simple.

It's easy to be scathing about people not "embracing change" if you don't find it hard. What if you did find it hard?

Stop being judgmental.

Agree Baggs some very smug posts on here.

I also agree with your second post that not all change is good.

Quite.

I believe we all learn what we need for what must be accomplished in our own lives. Not everyone needs the same.

For instance, I cook everything that we eat from plain ingredients, no take-out, no prepared foods - because that works as vegans.

I do all books for a very big business, with paper and pencil - perfect records for the Accountant. But I scan documents, save, copy, print - all we need.

A bit smug to poking what others do, everyone is different.

Chardy

Those I know who do not embrace IT have 2 things in common
1. No work background that included computers.
2. No (very) regular contact with family members who could support their learning.

I agrée with you and some are hard of hearing; with bad eyesight; rheumatoid hands or handicapped in other ways. Not 100% of people are physically capable.

I don't mind progress, and the changes that come with it, but sometimes it makes things impersonal. I admit missing a voice on the phone that can direct me to the right department, and then a voice that can actually listen to my issue and arrange a solution.

But yes, the internet, smart phones and tv's etc. make life so much easier and open a world on information at your fingertips.

I'm surprised you are still using pen and paper now, making tax digital etc etc

Baggs

Besides which, not all change is good.

That’s very true. The way we get our repeat prescriptions has changed. Previously, we either dropped off the paper form at the surgery or filled in the equivalent, received an email to say the order was being processed then picked up the meds three days later at the chemist.

Now, we go on a website and click a button that presumably sends a message to who-knows-where. There may or may not be a response. If no response in three days we have to phone the chemist and ask what’s happening. If they’ve no record of the request, we then have to phone the surgery and ask them to action it.

We then repeat the above until such time as the chemist says the surgery has sent the request to them. After two/three days I phone the chemist to ask if the prescription has been filled. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. Last time I got my meds I phoned up, they said it was ready and by the time I went in 20 minutes later they’d lost them! They searched the shop high and low, consulted the computer three times and eventually found them in the second place they’d looked. 🙄

To top it all, six days later, I had a message from them to say they’d put in a new order for the meds I had been supplied with just a few days beforehand.

Safe to say that’s one change I am hating. It’s so inefficient.

Isn’t it just that the majority of those reluctant to use ‘new’ technology are elderly, leading to the label being stuck on all of us. Also older people may be reluctant to invest in costly new equipment, be slower at railway stations etc.

Each to their own, why be so critical. Surely the loss of banks,post offices , where people have a choice to get cash out if so wished. Two of my family refuse to bank over the Internet, don't trust it, and who is to say they are wrong. How many on here have lost money because their bank card has been cloned at the machine, or been scammed by an email. My DS nearly lost 2,000 due to this. So maybe they have a point. By the way , I'm computer and tech savvy, self taught, basic taught at work, but I'm also for choice, of which much is being removed from us.

Like others on here, I started off using word processers back in the 80's with Amstrad, and have been through many incarnations until the present day, most, but not all, 'Word'.

I do love how easy and comfortable technology has made my life, everything from Washing machines along to Alexa. Can still remember, back in the 70's, my wonderment when I went to friends house (babysitting circle), and discovered that there was a long wire from her television with a gadget at the end which allowed me to change channels.!!

I am very much a 'user' of modern technology - do not try to understand it. Rather like I used to drive a car - never understood what happened under the bonnet.

In my 80's now I fully appreciate my Smartphone and get exasperated with other people who proudly show those silly little Nokia's telling me it is all they need, and then having to ask me to do things for them.

As volunteer secretary to our own Management Company (for our flats), I have saved us a lot of money by scanning into my laptop (and then saving onto a Memory Stick), all the very many thick documents that are requred by Solicitors each time a flat gets sold. No more having to pay for (or spend the time) on the extensive photocopying on these (paper and printer ink), and postage costs. Now sent at clicks of a button electronically.

OKay, sometimes the sheer speed of change can be a little frightening, but would really hate to be left far behind in the understanding of those things I use. I can far to ell remember back inthe 50's and 60's, not very old Aunts ho ere too scared tohave and use telephones!!!!!

I don't think old people HAVE to dislike change. Some do and some don't.
If you are the tech expert amongst members of your family or social group and you get exasperated at those less competent, you don't have to help them out. Just steer them in the direction of adult learning classes rather than poking fun at them for their perceived stupidity.

I'm 72, I'm tech savvy. All of my family and friends are too. My only failing appears to be that I don't have a smartphone. My old museum piece of a mobile does what I need it to do. It cost me £4.50 about 10 years ago. It's a pay as you go which costs me around £8 a month. All my online stuff is done on my tablet or desktop.
I'm well aware that at some point I will have to get a smartphone but at present I don't feel need to.

I used to work in a library where now and then they ran ‘Silver Surfers’ classes, to help older people get online.

However the young bloke who usually ran them was not at all a good fit for the job. He completely failed to understand how nervous many of the learners were, and didn’t put them at ease. It was very frustrating to witness and he wasn’t the type to listen to gentle hints.

If we had time, now and then we’d help someone who needed e.g. an email account, but hadn’t a clue. I once sat for ages with a woman who wanted email and insisted on a very complicated password (‘My husband said we must, so nobody can guess it’) but refused to write it down (husband’s rule again) despite my telling her that if she didn’t enter it exactly, it wouldn’t work.

And guess what, she couldn’t remember it so all that time was wasted, and I had to get back to my usual jobs.

OTOH there was once an old bloke of maybe 80, who’d seen something in the paper with a link to something he was interested in. I showed him the basics, he got it immediately, eventually went home saying how wonderful it was, he was off to buy a computer immediately! Very rewarding, but v few like that, alas.

How long ago was that WITZEND?
Most of us have been dealing with modern technology in one form or another for 30+ years now. I know I have and I am in my 60's now.

True, it was 10 or so years ago, but I was surprised even then that much younger people were asking for help to e.g. set up an email a/c, which they needed in order to apply for a job. And I once sat with a chap only in his 20s, who wanted to apply for a job as a fireman and didn’t know where to start.
I never did hear whether he was successful - I really hoped so.

Having already been computer-literate myself for decades it still amazed me how many people still weren’t, regardless of age.
I dare say things have improved a lot now - especially since Smartphones have become almost ubiquitous.

I do like technology and try to embrace it but it is the speed of change that is worrying. Nothing seems to last more than a few months before you have to relearn it. If you haven't had occasion to use something for a while it seems to be quietly replaced by a "better" version which then takes you by surprise when you need it. I feel as if I am constantly spinning so many plates!

Franbern As volunteer secretary to our own Management Company (for our flats), I have saved us a lot of money by scanning into my laptop (and then saving onto a Memory Stick), all the very many thick documents that are requred by Solicitors each time a flat gets sold. No more having to pay for (or spend the time) on the extensive photocopying on these (paper and printer ink), and postage costs. Now sent at clicks of a button electronically.

Really miraculous innt?

I scan, copy, save - Everything required for a very large complicated business - we save masses of paper, filing space, costs to mailing.

Brilliant and basically free.