Seniors Deserve Better Options

My 87-year-old father was house­bound today. Arc­tic cold and an immi­nent bliz­zard had caused his favorite weekly meet­ings to be can­celled for sev­eral days in a row.

For most peo­ple this would­n’t be a big deal. Our lives are full of activ­i­ties: work or fam­ily com­mit­ments, social inter­ac­tions, exer­cise, fun, vol­un­teer work — all the things that keep us happy, stim­u­lated and focused out­wardly. If bored, we can go for a drive, head to the mall or take in a movie.

But these can­cel­la­tions are a huge dis­ap­point­ment for my father, now liv­ing by him­self since my mother died six months ago. He no longer dri­ves at night, and lives 20–30 min­utes away from the clos­est city (an hour-plus to Boston, which is largely out of reach these days.) Leav­ing home for social con­tact in a cof­fee shop is a big deal, which largely con­strains him to a breakfast/sandwich shop a cou­ple of miles away.

Mac­u­lar degen­er­a­tion pre­vents him from read­ing the Boston Globe or library books the way he used to on snow­bound days.

He’s lonely, com­pared to his for­mer life, but not truly alone.

He is blessed with many chil­dren and grand­chil­dren, some of whom live nearby. His nearby fam­ily mem­bers are extremely gen­er­ous with their time and atten­tion to his well-being. He sees one daugh­ter almost daily, and has fre­quent in-per­son con­tact with other local fam­ily mem­bers. Those of us who live thou­sands of miles away stay in touch by phone, email or Face­book, or the occa­sional Skype video chat.

Lonely, Coping with Silence

Com­pared to many elders, Dad is not alone or iso­lated, if you look at things from a fac­tual or ratio­nal basis.

But his emo­tional truth says oth­er­wise. He’s lonely, and may go hours with­out hear­ing the sound of another human voice. My sis­ter’s aging dog is his most fre­quent com­pan­ion dur­ing the day.

He lives alone, in a sep­a­rate house­hold on my sis­ter’s prop­erty out in the coun­try. My par­ents moved there when they were no longer able to live inde­pen­dently in their own home. His liv­ing quar­ters are spa­cious, but he is a 20-minute drive from the town where he spent the past 40-some­thing years of his life. There’s no one within walk­ing dis­tance to talk to, dur­ing day­time hours when his chil­dren and grand­chil­dren are away at work or attend­ing classes. This win­ter he is cop­ing with “cabin fever.”

He is starved for what he thinks of as intel­lec­tual con­ver­sa­tion: chances to talk about a movie, last week’s ser­mon at church, an Obama speech, or a book he is read­ing on his Kin­dle. He finds few occa­sions to share moments of cre­ativ­ity (a new poem, a favorite photo or a spe­cial prayer, a child­hood mem­ory writ­ten down as a story). Con­ver­sa­tion and laugh­ter — things that were easy when his wife was alive — are no longer sim­ple, and rarely spon­ta­neous.

Social Technology for Seniors

Unlike most senior cit­i­zens who came of age dur­ing World War II, Dad is pretty tech savvy. He started using a com­puter in his early six­ties, and has twenty years of hands-on expe­ri­ence as a Mac user.

As a com­puter-savvy senior, he believed he could eas­ily find a web-based solu­tion for social inter­ac­tions with other house­bound seniors. So he spent yes­ter­day online, look­ing for prac­ti­cal senior-friendly solu­tions.

His mis­sion was to find an afford­able online ser­vice that would enable his church group mem­bers to meet vir­tu­ally on days when weather or med­ical appoint­ment con­flicts pre­vent face-to-face group meet­ings. He’d heard about WebEx, and had pre­vi­ously used Adobe Con­nect at his daugh­ter’s expense. He uses Face­book to stay in touch with grand­chil­dren, so he under­stands what might be pos­si­ble with com­mu­nity plat­forms.

He failed to find any­thing that he thought would meet the needs of his group of seniors…

Senior-friendly Needs

What was he look­ing for? [I’ve trans­lated his require­ments.]

• An online meet­ing envi­ron­ment that would allow mul­ti­ple peo­ple to talk to each other, and com­ment on what they were see­ing on-screen
• A meet­ing envi­ron­ment that would enable them to hear each oth­er’s voice in real time, and sup­port a nat­ural con­ver­sa­tion flow
• A means of tran­scrib­ing or record­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, for peo­ple who can­not attend the orig­i­nal online meet­ing
• A means of look­ing at, com­ment­ing on, col­lab­o­rat­ing on doc­u­ments, such as a prayer my father had just writ­ten
• An online place to man­age a stream of com­ments
• An easy way to find other like-minded peo­ple, inter­ested in talk­ing about sim­i­lar sub­jects
• A way to man­age group mem­ber­ship and pri­vacy, so groups would­n’t nec­es­sar­ily be open to all-com­ers (for exam­ple, restricted to mem­bers of the same church or senior cen­ter) — a place where they would­n’t feel bul­lied by peo­ple who work at a faster or more aggres­sive pace
• Keen atten­tion to acces­si­bil­ity, so seniors with hear­ing or vision chal­lenges could adjust the on-screen audio or visual pre­sen­ta­tion
• Superla­tive usabil­ity for seniors who are far less com­fort­able with com­put­ers than my dad

Not sur­pris­ingly, his search was pretty fruit­less.

Pricing Models Don’t Fit Senior Budgets

Soft­ware that might offer usabil­ity mod­els that would­n’t intim­i­date senior cit­i­zens is gen­er­ally priced for enter­prise bud­gets — way out of reach for seniors liv­ing on retire­ment sav­ings or pal­try pen­sions. Have you ever seen online pric­ing with spe­cial options for senior cit­i­zens or non­prof­its?

The free stuff tended to under­whelm him, due to com­plex­i­ties or usabil­ity gaps. His take was that set-up and sup­port would require on-going help by a tech savvy younger per­son who knows how to talk to his elders with­out being arro­gant or con­de­scend­ing. He lacked con­fi­dence that they could find vol­un­teers will­ing to help a bunch of old­sters like him.

He had a hard time believ­ing his church would be open to even think­ing about spon­sor­ing online meet­ings, for fear it would fur­ther deplete atten­dance by aging con­gre­ga­tions on Sun­day morn­ings. (We chat­ted a bit about dis­rup­tive inno­va­tions, and the fears of pow­er­ful incum­bents… But that’s another story.)

Our Under-served Elders

The irony is, seniors who feel lonely, iso­lated, lack stim­u­la­tion or intel­lec­tual chal­lenge are eas­ily prone to depres­sion or ill­ness. They become vul­ner­a­ble when they lose their sense of well-being or feel they can no longer con­tribute in mean­ing­ful ways to a com­mu­nity.

So they’ll go on yet another set of meds, or decline to the point where they need med­ical inter­ven­tion — which will cost tax­pay­ers even more money to sub­si­dize Medicare and Med­ic­aid.

These are our par­ents and grand­par­ents. Surely they deserve bet­ter.

One day we’ll be in their shoes too… By that time I sure hope soci­ety has fig­ured out ways for seniors to con­nect, to chat, to share — even when house­bound due to bad weather or fail­ing health.