Our society is deviant if not sick in the way that we push old people to the side and avoid them instead of honoring them. It seems related to our worship of youth and fear of death.<p>I remember hearing an interview with a Canadian researcher who went to Cuba to study how they did something (I forget what, perhaps health care). While visiting a seniors' centre, she saw a bunch of 10-12 year old kids playing checkers with the old people in a common room. Later, she asked the director how they had come up with so successful a program to pair kids with seniors. "What program?" was the reply. "They just come in off the street."<p>Such a thing is unthinkable where I live. That says a lot.
I'm fortunate that I'm able to email and skype with my 90 year old grandmother.<p>I do think it's interesting to see how this will play out with people who are used to being online. My grandmother is probably able to function online at the level she does because started on AOL 15+ years ago. Of course she still uses an AOL email address. So in someways she's ahead of the tech curve, but in others, she's quite behind. I'm sure this will be much the same story when we are that age.
Well that was a bit depressing to read.<p>I wonder how expensive it would be to make simple games that can be shown on the "community" TV in old-folks homes with a hardware component that fosters some discussions / interactions.<p>For example, a simple multiple-choice trivia program ("Which famous movie started with the word 'Rosebud'" etc.) with simple remotes with 4 buttons that they can use to play, like you find on airplane entertainment systems sometimes.<p>Thinking about it the Wii would make the perfect platform for an "old folks home" entertainment system, just needs the software.
> Our society is deviant if not sick in the way that we push old people to the side and avoid them instead of honoring them.<p>The way the US treats old people isn't exemplary, but reading Jared Diamond's "The world until yesterday" has kinda opened my eyes a bit - in some societies old people are abandoned, or just killed outright
Imagine how much less lonely many elderly today could be with a cheap laptop, skype and social networks. Is the pain of learning new technology really so much greater than the pain of loneliness? Is there something else at work?