Digital divide is one of the biggest challenges facing elderly people

Surely there is a market for easy-to-use apps which would help older people navigate a world that is now largely online, says Susan Dalgety

One of the biggest challenges facing people as they age is food shopping. When you’re fit and healthy, you don’t think twice about running to the corner shop for an emergency pint of milk or jumping in the car to your favourite supermarket for the weekly shop, but for many elderly folk this is simply not an option.

My mother, in her late eighties, recently had a spell in hospital. She is fast on the road to recovery, but is now unable to walk up and down the hill to her local supermarket, let alone carry several shopping bags.

She decided to try online shopping, but what a palaver that has turned out to be. I won’t bore you with the fun and games that we had last week, trying first to set her up with a Tesco account, then when that failed, register her with Morrisons. Sadly for her, her favourite store Sainsbury’s doesn’t deliver to her village. Suffice to say, our problems revolve round her bank account being linked to her landline rather than her mobile phone; that and my failure to reach a human being on Tesco’s customer services helpline.

She now has to wait for her bank to send her a verification code by post, which she can then use to add her mobile to her account. Are you keeping up? Luckily my mother, who loves her iPad, is reasonably comfortable with the process of online shopping, thanks to practicing on Amazon for several years now, but she is not comfortable with online banking. And why should she be? For much of her adult life, she knew her bank manager by name. Now she has to press 1, 2 or 3 to speak to a bot.

The digital divide is one of the biggest challenges facing elderly people. Many do not own smartphones or tablets. Even those that do may struggle with the basic digital tasks that their grandchildren take for granted. My mother used slates in her primary school, now she has to work out how to navigate two-step verification. Surely there is a market for easy-to-use apps which would help older people navigate a world that is now largely online. Perhaps AI will sort it out.