The generation which was forced to accept digitech

http://www.cybervictims.org

The other day, I saw a 70 year old man pleading his grown up grand son to help him to use the ATM card. The boy impatiently asked the grandpa “make your card and password ready. I don’t have time. I will take just one minute to take the cash and will rush to the college.’ The wise grandpa took out his card and just the moment they entered the ATM cabin, he excitedly helped his grandson by telling him the password …………well, it was not to him alone. We all could hear that. He was excited. He encouraged his grandson ‘press ………..numbers quick quick … that’s like a good boy. Now go.’  He looked relaxed. No long queue, no manual jobs, just pressing of the numbers will do the job. I found quite a similar situation again at home. My 95 year old grandma who still takes pleasure in reading newspapers, analyses the political situation and sometimes predicts exactly too, once asked me do you think machines can really replace men. I asked her the reason for her thought provoking question and pat came the answer.."you are telling us... the old people to use  a card to get the money. Suppose if the machine goes wrong then where is the log book? Where do you go and and press  that it was me who had asked for the money  and  the machine did not pay me, but paid some  one else?' I tired to make her understand but she refused to accept the victory of machines over human beings.

Very ironically, all of us, belonging to all age groups are prone to be victimized by ‘machines’ and  the ‘system’ by which the machines run. But the older generation are even more prone to be victimized because most of them use digital technologies for financial transaction purposes. Many senior citizens may opt for ‘card’ instead of passbooks. But  at the same time, many may feel uncomfortable to use the cards. I have noticed a tendency with old people to write down the password in papers. This habit itself promises very dangerous day out especially when the person concerned asks youngsters to help in operating the ATM machine. Very unfortunately many younger members of families may have to leave the parental homes and also the older generations in the hands of none but destiny for better salaried jobs. Even though the younger generation feels secured that the older generation is left with no huge amount of cash at home like the old days, but plastic money can also cause grave problem for the security of the old people. We need to remember that our older generation was not born in the digital era. They are witnessing an era only. We have brought in the digital era and we have created the digital era. Our children are born in the digital era. Hence it is equally important to make the older generation aware of the safety issues as we are doing for our next generation. But no matter what, we have to trust the older generation’s instinct tremendously in certain cases. If the person concerned declares that he can not manage the plastic money come what may, it is useless to force digitech on him unless there is a guarantee that some one trustworthy and well versed in managing the ATM cards is always there to help him.

The hard truth is, the more we are becoming "techie," the faster human values are become smaller.

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”, 26th^th March,2011, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/