Are Apps Ageist?

I was lucky enough to be quoted on Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show recently! My moment of fame came during a discussion about complaints made by an older-ladies swimming group in Kent who are angry that the council has introduced online-only parking options at the carpark where they meet up before going off for their swim. Where once they could have paid in cash, now the only option is to use the Ringo parking app.

The ladies have called the introduction of app-only payment as “ageist and discriminatory against the elderly”. They say that some in their group don’t know what an app is and that some are scared of inputting financial data into their phones in case they get caught out by a scam.

My comment on the radio was that, essentially, mobile technology is here to stay and is increasingly popular.

Whilst the ladies have genuine concerns about using technology, the use of mobiles to perform more and more everyday tasks – like paying for services – is only going to get more common.

Unwilling customers

The swimming group ladies raised some very genuine points. Many older people don’t understand technology terribly well – and some don’t want to! We hear a lot about scams and people having their bank accounts raided because they’ve mistakenly given away their details to fraudsters. It’s no surprise that they would be reticent to sign up to something like a parking app – particularly when good old fashioned coins worked perfectly well before.

But the problem the ladies now have – that some are struggling to pay and so feel they can’t join their friends to go swimming – is that because they can’t or don’t want to use the mobile payment solution they’re potentially going to miss out on their favourite hobby with their friends. This will happen more and more to people (of any age) who don’t want to, or can’t, use their mobiles to pay – there are shops and bars for example that only take online payments. Shop keepers and stall holders at markets often say it’s safer for them not to have money on their premises or on their person. For many, hard cash is an inconvenience and the benefits of mobile payments make it a favoured option.

The fast moving mobile revolution

So what to do? It sounds rather like a case of ‘like it or lump it’ for the Kent ladies. The Council have, though, to be fair offered a pay in advance option that they can call from home before they set off! But more and more in their lives I think they’ll be running into similar problems whilst out and about, and there is a bit of an inevitability in them having to get on board with the mobile revolution at some point. Whilst apps vary widely in how user friendly they are, on the whole they are surprisingly easy to use, incredibly convenient, often totally secure and safe. Sure they can take some getting used to but most people come to love using them.

I hope the Kent ladies give the app a go and that they too become app loving converts!