Silver surfers need saving from themselves
With news that record numbers of older people are going online comes a fear that these silver surfers are at increased risk of treacherous rip tides – or rather rip-off tides.
The Insta-scammers and Facebook fraudsters the rest of us delete from the get-go are inevitably setting their sights on these newcomers untutored in the more nefarious ways of the web.
That’s a great shame because nobody wants grandma to fall prey to shysters and charlatans when she only logged on to see what the grandchildren were up to and whether there’s yoga at the church hall.
Does that sound patronising? I don’t mean it to be; I’ve gone in the other direction and am so mired in suspicion and paranoia I refuse to open even bona fide email links for fear of unleashing viral contagion.
As a result, I never update personal details and school dinners routinely go unpaid.
It’s the 21st-century equivalent of survivalism; holed up with my computer, armed to the teeth with anti-virus software, Praetorian guard spam filters deflecting all-comers.
I still shop extensively online, which might sound contradictory but differs fundamentally in that I am choosing to give my details (you know who you are, John Lewis), rather than being asked to supply them at random.
But I do also understand how easy it is to come a cropper online given the often false and certainly precipitate intimacy engendered by the endorphin buzz of social media.
It’s not hard to identify and dismiss the bogus begging letters ostensibly from loved ones asking for emergency funds to be transferred; much more problematic is the erosion of our natural vigilance when it comes to credit cards, passwords and urgent instructions to click on links “for verification purposes”.
Our offspring are routinely warned about the potential perils of the internet. Without wishing to infantilise older people in particular, perhaps it’s time we drew up some definitive online e-dicts to keep every generation safe as they surf? All suggestions welcome.