Not everyone’s an online fanatic

Idon’t know if you’ve noticed, but the electronic age has more than just arrived – it threatens to take over our lives!

We are bombarded daily with the latest gadgets, and many people, particularly those of the younger generation, appear to be wedded to their mobile phones, suffering withdrawal symptoms if they are separated from them even for short periods.

As far as our senior citizens are concerned, the most troubling aspect of this is the speed with which businesses and government departments are wanting to do all transactions online.

That’s all very fine for those who are computer literate but quite a sizeable portion of the elderly do not have, and do not want, computers.

They feel threatened by this ethereal way of doing business and would prefer the familiarity of a piece of paper and money you can see in your wallet.

The problem that’s hitting such elderly people now is that businesses have started charging a fee for the privilege of sending out a paper invoice, and/or having the bill paid over the counter of a PostShop or some other designated place.

At $1.50 a pop, this is not a cheap exercise.

Unfortunately, many people are under the impression that superannuitants are well off. Let me disabuse them. Elderly people who rely on superannuation are struggling already to make ends meet, and this added imposition can mean not going to the doctor, for instance.

Surely the funds saved by those customers carrying out electronic transactions would cover the relatively few paper ones required.

I recently attended a discussion of age-friendly cities. It was most enlightening.

And before you go off sideways thinking of the elderly as being self-centred, think again.

An age-friendly city is a citizenfriendly city.

We would all benefit from such features as non-slip pavements, wide enough for wheelchairs (or baby buggies), with dropped curbs to road level; clean, pleasant public areas; well-signed buildings, inside and out, with accessible passageways, seating and toilets; well- maintained roads with covered drains and good lighting; traffic lights that give adequate time for the elderly (as well as mothers with young children and the disabled) to cross; sufficient, affordable, well-constructed housing; and so on.

It is well to remember that the general expectation of most people is that they will live to be a senior.

Population prophets forecast a huge disproportion between the numbers of over-65s and those under-65 in the not-too-distant future.

That is the result of several factors: improvements in health and the treatment of illness; smaller families with both parents working; large annual numbers of abortions; immigration of large numbers of people over the age of about 40; flight overseas of younger people seeking higher wages and more excitement in their lives.

So, sooner or later, we can anticipate our own ageing.

Therefore it behoves us to put this fact into our discussions over city and district plans.

Last month, our members enjoyed an election address by New Zealand First leader Winston Peters.

This month we are into more mundane health-related things.

Ann Boland is going to advise us on a project for the ‘‘ frail elderly’’ being run out by the District Health Board and Rachel Lee is to introduce us to Chubb Homeguard Medical Alarms.

It should be an interesting session, and don’t be put off by the ‘‘frail elderly’’ tag – it is quite specific and though it doesn’t apply to all of us right now, it could in the future.

We need to realistic.

be