A number of companies are now producing mobile phones which are geared towards “the aged or technophobic” (not my words) and one, which sold 250000 across Europe in the last year, is now launching its second generation version. It doesn’t have loads and loads of fancy features but the ones it does have do seem useful for its intended market – I refuse to use their heading “Mobile for the over 50s set to ignite the silver sector”
The phone has the following attributes: a super loud hands-free speakerphone, over-sized (how can this be?) display and buttons, flash light, hearing aid compatible, one press “in case of emergency” facility, a standby time of 250 hours. (If you want to continue taking the stones out of horses’ hooves you’ll still need your Swiss army knife.)
We’re not quite so enamoured of the price, £145 for pay-as-you-go. It looks a bit like the phone equivalent of supermarket organic foods.
In my prime welcomes such developments and does not find them in any way demeaning. Nobody is forced to buy one. To be honest, our first stance is always to master the technology, as intended, rather than look for substitutes. However, it is a fact of life that as we get older certain parts of us no longer function as well as they did before. But that should not lead to social or workplace exclusion. It’s all very well casually assuming that people will have to work into their mid-seventies but, unless the environment becomes more age-friendly, it will just not be possible. Employers will continue to find ways to be ageist, citing inability or declining performance, when a serious consideration and re-designing of the tasks or more sensible, more appropriate equipment will be all that is needed.
The problem’s not going to go away.
