The Magic Box

 Our former neighbour is 97 and my wife still pops round every week to bring her some shopping and for a chat. She is a fascinating and remarkable woman. Incredibly sharp and very determined and independent where possible. I guess this strength & resilience comes from living through war and experiences we can only imagine and watch in films.

We were with her one day over Christmas and she mentioned needing to buy something, But the only way she could buy it was if she used “The Magic Box”. This comment fascinated me and got me thinking about living in this era. I know age doesn’t define your technical skills per se. Or willingness to except modernisation and change. I witnessed this in hospital over recent years. Another older lady, in her 90’s using WhatsApp video to video chat with her children and grand children was great to see. A clear example of that technology providing a benefit. But, of course for many and in particular the older generation that didn’t learn these skills as children like the modern era can struggle, and when you dig deeper it made me realise that actually, after all the battles our elderly have faced, including being disregarded by our leaders in the recent pandemic, it’s my opinion that they are now being disregarded in this rapidly digitised world.

What is the point of technology? Surely it is to make something better for us. To make tasks easier or quicker. To help with your health and happiness. To help us feel safer. What has happened quite clearly is that modern technology has taken over nearly all our everyday tasks and I haven’t got a problem with that because it generally feels like its improved my experience.  But over a quarter of our population is aged over 60 years old and over 3 million people are over aged over 80. Whilst many have adapted, and many have family to assist with everyday tasks.  Some don’t have that help and to me it doesn’t seem fair. As usual our government just relies on the good will of people to take care of them, and it appears to me that they and along with some of the tech giants and huge enterprise commercial contracts have turned their backs.

The telephone was the lifeline for these people, and this is where our neighbour would typically organise her personal affairs like insurance. Now she just lets it role over because she can’t call them anymore. Plus, she hasn’t got one of those magic boxes and if she did, she doesn’t know how to use it. So she is not getting the best deal. To really compound this problem her landline is bombarded be evil twisted scammers trying to steal from her which again, the government shows no sign of getting to grips with. Partly because it seems to be from overseas, but they are using exchange service to produce what appears to be a local UK number calling, so to me it feels just like when I was defrauded and the government organisations are simply out of pocket, out of skill and out of willingness to sort this out.

She can no longer buy milk from the milk delivery company without the “magic box” and she is not able to get to the shops every day. She relies on her shopping being picked up for her. To pay bills she used to go to the post office, now she can’t pay her bills at the post office and they are closing rapidly. We can all see this in our day to day lives. You struggle to book travel unless your online. Certain airlines make it virtually impossible to call them, or even monetise those calls. There was a campaign recently to keep our train ticket offices open, forcing people online or onto the sometimes over complicated and difficult to use machines, corporate companies cutting costs and services whilst profits for shareholders are obscene.

Parking has become stressful and almost impossible in some cases. With land sold off to private companies that employ third party agents to police and monetise the car parks. This results in there being so many different companies. I have 6 different company apps on my phone alone just to park at the various hospitals we visit on a regular basis. Some of the apps are really unstable and full of bugs, almost impossible to successfully book your parking. I recall one that would not forget my old car, I couldn’t load a new one, had poor Wi-Fi, I tried calling and the number was not answered. It took me 45 minutes to resolve by deleting my account, opening a new one, deleting the bug-ridden app and reloading it because it wouldn’t up-date.

Some places have hidden signs and confusing language designed to trip you up, default on your parking and massively multiply its profits with threats of legal action if you don’t comply. They are doing this seemingly within the law and we are letting this happen. Bullying people for profit. On many machines you cannot put cash in the machine, or again it’s just too complex or not working, imagine trying to park as an older person who doesn’t have a smart phone?

I’ve been waiting for a hospital appointment. After they cancelled one and we got it re-instated. They then text some months later that I need to confirm via text that I still wanted the appointment. Well, yes! But I needed to confirm by text and access the new NHS app, which for some reason has now locked me out and I need to prove who I am. How is an older person without a phone or smart phone, or ‘magic box’ meant to do this?

We now cannot phone our doctors. We are told you have to put your symptoms into their online portal. This is then escalated by a (non-medical qualified) call handler. I guess it’s another alternative to verbally disclosing your symptoms to a medically unqualified administration assistant, who is deciding on your health requirement severity and if you need to see the Nurse to avoid the overloaded GP. Sat in the waiting room recently I seen a frail older lady gingerly make her way to the desk. She told reception that she hasn’t got a computer, her family are away so cannot help, and she tried calling and couldn’t get through. So, in a quiet reception, in front of all the other patients, this lady now was asked to disclose her symptoms in public as it’s the only way to get an appointment with the doctor. When did humans lose all their dignity and deserved respect?

What a scary time to enter older age and be so disregarded. All your hard work and honesty, only to be ignored and disrespected. By living your life honesty working hard, getting through a war, and eventually you’ll end up paying for your own care anyway. Makes you wonder who’s got it right? What’s the point? Of course, our system rightfully takes care of the most vulnerable and disabled, but we all know that many lazy and undeserving people are manipulating our system and despite these honourable people putting money into the system all there working lives, there can be no question they are worse off.

So, the Magic Box. This thing I’m typing this on now that most take for granted, not everyone can use it, and millions are being driven into impossible digital wilderness and its not fair! But what's the answer? Especially where so many crooks target the most vulnerable. They recognise this target audience much more intelligently than the out of date authorities and sadly exploit it!

I wonder if we should have councils backing for every town and city to have mobile truck that can be used like a mobile internet café. But staffed by specialist people that are CRB cleared to work with vulnerable people and trained and skilled to work with older people and those with health problems and disabilities. So once a week people know they can safely board that bus to get their essential errands done. I’m sure between all the big businesses they could easily club together to sponsor it as well. Make it happen!

Call them “The Magic Box” 

Tony McCool