As an undergraduate student in the late 1990s, I experienced the emergence of the internet. Those were exciting times! My home computer had a chunky monitor and a tower connected to a dial-up modem, and I could print my assignments on a noisy dot matrix printer.

            Upon graduation, I was sent to teach at a primary school with predominantly senior staff in their 40s to 60s. We grappled with matters like printing report slips from an online system and incorporating technology into our classrooms.

            Often, these older, more experienced colleagues called on the new teachers to help with IT (Information Technology), like learning new software and changing the computer settings to print on double sides. We found amusement in these situations, yet also expressed sadness at how rapidly technology was evolving. As a young and inexperienced newbie in the education industry, I pondered: Will I also encounter difficulties in adapting when I reach their age?

            Fast forward two decades, and I found myself in another job, including creating social media content. With an old Facebook account and some picture-sharing on Instagram, I figured: Well, it can’t be that difficult! Surely I can learn from colleagues or attend courses if I need to.

            My boss asked me to accompany her to an event after work a month into the job. It was about an art project involving tertiary-level students, and I was pretty excited about it. Then she handed me the company phone and asked me to create an Instagram story with a link to the event website so our followers could see the event ‘live’.

            … A what?

           With the event launch just minutes away, I pressed this button and that, panicking somewhat. Feeling rather foolish, I approached a group of tertiary students at the event and asked them what to do. True to their form as digital natives, one student deftly took over my phone and, with fingers flashing across the screen at lightning speed, taught me how to create an Instagram story. Within seconds, she had a draft ready while I squinted at the screen with my worsening eyesight and realised that I had now become like the senior teachers in the staff room years before.

An example of Instagram Story with a link to an event

(Image credit: Wordstream)

            In the past few years, especially during Covid, there has been a push to digitalise more functions in our lives. Some of these grew out of necessity, such as attending meetings online or ordering food delivery because we could not dine out. However, many of these changes have evolved to keep pace with developments in more technologically advanced nations. For instance, it is common to pay for most things with a mobile phone in some cities in China. Before the pandemic, I read reports of Chinese tourists complaining about being unable to do so as quickly in Singapore.

            Officers from the relevant authorities in Singapore have tried persuading my mother to try accepting digital payments at her shop, promising rebates and help if necessary. I explained to them that she could not read English and did not even have a 4G phone. A good friend’s mum complains that she can’t even get a person to help her these days when she dials hotlines to ask for help, and even declares that if the day comes when food centres don’t even accept cash anymore, she will stop going out. This is not a distant reality, as earlier this year, Kopitiam announced they would no longer accept payment with the physical value-stored card.

“Technology can be fun – who doesn’t use messaging apps these days and watch animal videos loop on and on – but our reliance on it can alienate our elderly.”

            As a middle-aged person living in Singapore, I am not as digitally savvy as the millennials or Gen Z. Still, I learnt to use the internet in my late teens, and even I have my struggles with IT – not to mention the senior citizens of my parents’ generation who grew up without computers. Some baby boomers have embraced technology to their credit. I can see some of these grey-haired folks texting on WhatsApp, making video calls and learning to pay with apps, but not everyone wants to be so reliant on technology.

            This probably sounds old-fashioned, but to be honest, I miss the days when commuters on the trains and buses were not all staring at their screens, playing games or videos loudly or ‘frozen’ in front of the escalators while trying to compose a message. Commuters chatted with strangers and looked at the scenery outside. I cherish the old days when friends used to remember one another’s home numbers and dialled them for a chat or when someone answered the phone when I called a hotline for help. The irony was not lost on me when I couldn’t get through a bank’s hotline once, holding on for 20 minutes listening to music and commercials – and when I finally tried chatting with the bot online, I realised it was a person handling my request. Would it not have been much easier to get her to man a phone line rather than make customers painstakingly type out our requests?

            I think of my senior colleagues from my first teaching school years ago and wonder how they would feel having to teach online during Covid and learning new technology from scratch. Technology can be fun – who doesn’t use messaging apps these days and watch animal videos loop on and on – but our reliance on it can alienate our elderly. While Singapore pushes for further digitalisation, let us not forget to physically look at the people we are texting in the next room and to look up from our screens to watch the world that is spinning too fast for some members of our society.