The problem is not that older people cannot cope with modern systems. The problem is that too many modern systems have forgotten there is a person at the other end.
First published on The Old Grey Thinker on Substack.
There is a sentence I have heard too often.
“You’re not good with technology.”
It is usually said kindly, which somehow makes it worse. A kindly insult arrives wearing slippers. You are halfway through thanking it before you notice the bruise.
I am not bad with technology. I spent decades at sea working with systems that became very expensive, very quickly, if misunderstood. I have adapted to more changes than some apps have had updates. I can read instructions, follow a process, remember a sequence, and swear accurately under pressure.
What I am tired of is being managed by it.
There is a difference.
Technology used to be a tool. Increasingly it behaves like a supervisor with trust issues. It wants me to confirm, accept, scan, update, validate, authenticate, review, enable, disable, and agree to a document no living human has read voluntarily. And if I hesitate, the conclusion is that I am behind.
Behind what, exactly? A login screen for an account I never wanted? A parking app that has me standing in the rain inventing a password beside a machine that used to take coins? A television that forgets who I am every time it has a mood?
No. I am not behind. I am in front of something badly designed.
Readers keep telling me about their small rebellions. Paper diaries. Address books. Calendars on the fridge. Important numbers written where they can be found without opening six apps and waiting for one of them to remember its manners.
People call this nostalgia. I don’t think it is. Nostalgia is longing for the old station cafe because the buns were better in 1978. This is something more practical: a refusal to let ordinary life become invisible. A note on paper stays where you put it. A diary does not redesign itself. A list in your pocket is not improved by a premium tier.
The harm is never in one incident, which is why it is so hard to explain. The streaming app logged you out. The bank wanted another code. The surgery website moved the button, and someone told you to clear your cache with the serene confidence of a person who has never wanted to throw a laptop into a hedge.
Each small thing is survivable. Together they teach hesitation. You approach the next task already braced. You start doubting yourself before anything has gone wrong.
So the defence starts with refusing the wrong shame. Not all difficulty is evidence of decline. Sometimes the form is bad. Sometimes the process is rude. Sometimes the whole thing was built for the convenience of the institution, not the human being standing in front of it.
That does not fix anything. I know. But it puts some of the burden back where it belongs.
I will use technology when it serves the life in front of me. I will resist it when it turns that life into unpaid admin. And I will not accept the lazy little story that older people struggle with change.
We have changed plenty. We are simply old enough to know that not every change deserves applause.
The full piece, including the part about what years of tiny screen humiliations do to perfectly competent people, is on Substack: https://theoldgreythinker.substack.com/p/i-am-not-bad-with-technology-i-am
This, unbelievably, is not backed by a gleaming media empire, a glass office, or a man called Hugo in brand partnerships. It is one old grey thinker, several unreasonable opinions, and enough Yorkshire Tea to refloat a modest ferry.
So if this piece made you laugh, mutter “that’s true,” or stare into the middle distance like a pensioner who has just discovered the price of printer ink, do the decent thing.
Take out an annual subscription to The Old Grey Thinker. Read another piece on Medium. Buy me a tea. Or pick up The Second Act Playbook or The Creator Library.
It will not bankrupt you.
It may even improve your character.
And frankly, given the heroic public service I am performing by being this wise, this underfunded, and this magnificently cool, I think we can all agree I deserve it.