Lesley Riddoch: Sharing skills could be the best Christmas gift
Digitally-savvy youngsters could help older people embrace technology and connect the generations, writes Lesley Riddoch
It took precisely oneand-a-half minutes. But thanks to the 18-year-old son of my best friend, I finally managed to download a podcast to my iphone this weekend. The task was, of course, completely straightforward. It had also seemed completely daunting – an admission that’s now beyond embarrassing. After all, I’ve recorded a weekly podcast since 2012 and regularly exhort others to listen without having the faintest idea how to do it myself, or the humility to ask.
Now, at last, I’m over the hump. This means long journeys contain new options.
I can read, work or stare at the seat in front as usual – or join the rest of humanity who’ve been quietly broadening their minds, tickling their sense of humour or deepening their grasp of emerging trends and understanding of obscure issues within the rich, varied world of the podcast.
Better very late than never, I suppose.
Yet last week’s little discovery would not have happened without last week’s equally modest advance. After moaning on Twitter that the rail ticket machine at Leuchars was broken again, causing a last-minute stampede on the office by folk collecting tickets booked online, a younger friend texted a smartcard picture with one single accompanying word – Doh.
Thus chastened, my next rail ticket was duly “collected” onto the “smart” railcard. It took just one single different click while ordering online to make queuing for paper tickets a thing of the past.
And what of it?
The reason for sharing these mundane admissions is simple – I suspect I’m not the only one failing to master everyday technology or “reach out” for help to catch up. Yet life behind the digital curve affects far more than just ease of travel and breadth of information gathering. I had become one of Scotland’s (partially) digitally excluded and didn’t even know it because my own age group is generally even more hesitant. That’s a big problem for everyone because managerial fiftysomethings tend to project their own skills, capacities (and shortcomings) onto others and therefore limit ideas, possibilities, connections and advances for far more people than just themselves.
And so, with just eight shopping days to Christmas, I’d like to suggest something a bit out of keeping with the conspicuous consumption that’s come to dominate the festive season. Instead of reaching in desperation for the boxed sets, DVDS, perfume, body lotion and aftershave in the nearest available identikit mall – stop a minute. How many of us need any more of that in our lives? Some families have imposed upper limits on costs to cut down on the sheer volume of unwanted clutter. But in our materialist culture, spending limits exist only to be broken – the only way to prove money is no object and folk really care about their parents/workmates/children/schoolmates/teachers. Yet all we do is produce mounds of stuff for charity shops in the New Year, or recycling at a future giving opportunity.
There is an option. Why not consider giving
useful skills and quality time instead of slightly pointless presents? Or, looked at the other way round, why not ask for help operating your portfolio of technology – not more hard-to-operate bits of kit? The result would certainly be life-changing at a personal level – it could also transform the nation’s productivity as digitally savvy young folk help older generations embrace technology. Let’s be honest. Wildly varying levels of digital confidence are fast becoming an unbridgeable generational divide.
Take another example.
At the recent screening of a film about Norway in the Nation series, the projector stubbornly refused to function. The organiser was frantic. He’d watched the whole film an hour earlier and everything had worked fine. But now 100 people were waiting expectantly, nothing was happening. The roof-mounted projector was out of reach and the operational details out of sight, presenting a wee challenge, which shone another light on Scotland’s digital divide. Some members of the audience went off to find the janitor, some went looking for a ladder, others checked the batteries and then retried the remote control – all to no avail. At which point one of the younger members of the audience simply took a picture of the offending projector with his phone, enlarged it on his screen, took a note of the make and serial number, googled it and discovered the frequency of the flashing blue light meant the bulb had blown and needed to be replaced. Sadly no replacement was on hand, so another member of the audience ran home and got his projector.
What of it? Well, every wellmeaning but digitally unsavvy member of the audience was streets behind the capacity of the youngest person present. And the irony? Almost every member of the audience had a phone.
The shame is that most of us still aren’t thinking with it, which means an older generation – though Skype-friendly enough to connect with far-flung offspring – may be missing a whole set of digital ways to get new ideas and connections. All for the want of some friendly conversation and skill-swapping to get the most from the gadgets we already have.
Old fashioned, face-to-face skill-sharing and modern technology may seem odd bedfellows. But they don’t have to be. Leigh Caldwell is co-founder and partner at the Irrational Agency, where he applies behavioural economics to market research and was a guest on the excellent Radio 4 series Thought Cages. The programme was pondering the consumer’s experience in a vanishing high street, and a multinational dominated supply chain, which delivers objects in an efficient but rather dehumanised race to the bottom. Are we obliged to keep buying into these empty patterns of consumption simply to keep the traditional town centre alive?
Not according to Caldwell.
“The things that are most valuable to me in life are the relationships I have, the opportunity to communicate with people, the meaning that accrues to my life, the path I see ahead and my memories of the past.”
And, like it or not, memories and relationships are enhanced, not diminished, by technology – even the mobile phone. Switching it off on Christmas Day demands willpower. Using it to truly connect needs curiosity and confidence.
Here’s hoping different generations can help one another realise the extraordinary power of the digital world in 2019 – with less stuff and more skills.