As an e-assistant, journalist and writer Marianne Vestergaard Nielsen has encountered older adults who feel lost in the online technology that has swept the country since 2014. With tremendous force the feeling has torn their sense of self apart and ruined their ideas of themselves as skilful individuals.
The idea is to publish a compilation of six short portraits of older adults who feel trapped in the digital world. The text material portrays the lives of capable people who grew up and lived a full life in a day and age without the internet. Now the very same people have been side-tracked only because they are not familiar with modern digital technology. They have lost some of their independence and rely on others for help and advice about how to find bus timetables, buy tickets, or order a new passport on borgerservice.dk.
The latest report from Statistics Denmark shows that as of 2018 more than 315.000 Danes over the age of 65 have opted out from receiving digital mail. The book is going to demonstrate what it is like to have been born when there were no telephones, televisions or tablets, and what it is like to live in a society where reality increasingly exists on the internet.
Throughout life they have contributed to the backbone of modern life which does not leave much room for people without a smartphone – or for people who feel insecure when public letters and money become digital, hence become invisible when the screen is turned off. Time, space and social interaction have turned into weightless concepts, floating around with new and other dimensions.
The book also targets staff at Borgerservice and will be distributed to all Borgerservice centres in Denmark.
Press here for a digital copy of the book or a printed edition (in Danish)