Swiss vote against online login system with digital identity – IT Pro – News

This is how you give digital literates the opportunity to work in their old trusted way …

The problem is, digit bites don’t go away. My mother is 65. She has had a computer at home since 1998. That is 23 years. When that computer came into the house, she was slightly older than I am now. She used the computer to edit photos for a long time, and got pretty good at that; but now that hobby has dropped, and now the computer is only used for a bit of Facebook, her partner’s mail, some internet, and Sudoku. (It’s no longer the 1998 computer, of course; but you get the idea.)

She has completely forgotten about the photo editing stuff, and apart from the limited computer use, there is no interest in the household for any technology whatsoever; rather suspicious, such as refusing to fill in tax online (it does go online through a tax advisor, but everything is still arranged offline on paper), no online banking (weekly all expenses and fixed costs on paper add up, and compare with what is on the bank statement), etc.

Despite having a computer for 23 years, my mother is actually digital literate.

My sister is my age, and she doesn’t get any further than Facebook, mail, and internet banking. Neither did my brother-in-law. Interest in technology and digital possibilities is zero. My niece is intelligent enough, but she has never seen a computer, except a telephone … and therefore does not really know anything apart from Youtube and maybe a little internet.

The same goes for “old people who can’t do new things”: there are people who are already “old people” at the age of 35; that are completely separate from the path in which society is currently moving. The fact that my 80-year-old father can no longer handle online banking, DigiD, and internet shopping, soit … but that as someone aged 35-40 you don’t know how that works, is simply disturbing.

In short, digitbetism propagates. It does not go away “by itself”. It only goes away when there is no other way to do things, simply because otherwise you will not get your affairs done.

–