Universal design promises access for all, yet everyday tech choices tell another story. When menus, tickets, and services hide behind apps and QR codes, independence becomes conditional.
For many seniors, convenience turns into exclusion—proof that progress without inclusion isn’t progress at all.
I read Phil Crump’s Page 19 column with some interest. (Of course, like you, I read all of our columnists with interest!). I hadn’t considered smart-phone tech from a Biblical or theological point of view, but I have an uneasy relationship with digital technology and I can sympathize with Phil’s sentiments.
The assumption that everyone carries a cell phone creates not just favouritism but actual exclusion—it implies that to pay for your parking (as in Phil’s case), or to look at a menu or to use many other services, you must first shell out for a phone and then pay a monthly plan to operate it.
It is true that seniors are the most resistant people to the technological shift. This isn’t simply because we are old and stubborn. We have lived for a long time without being connected 24 hours a day to all of our friends and acquaintances. If we are wondering about something, we can be content to wonder—we don’t need to look it up immediately.
We value our individuality and our privacy, the two things that constant connection seeks to deprive us of.
Younger people may laugh at our backward ways, dismissing us as lacking the intelligence to operate simple devices. They forget who invented this stuff: Bill Gates, who founded the Microsoft tech empire, is 70 years old. Masahiro Hara, who invented the Quick Reference (QR) code, is 68.
Phil’s point about favouritism or exclusion brings me to the idea of universal design. That concept says that if we design systems and things with inclusion in mind, everybody benefits. The classic example is ramps or curb-cuts for wheelchair accessibility: stairs are impossible for some people, but people can use a ramp whether they use a wheelchair or not. And a ramp is a positive benefit for parents pushing strollers, people with a cart of groceries, or even a delivery trucker with a dolly-load of beer kegs.
Technology is outpacing philosophy. If someone can make a buck with something, we will adopt it whether or not it serves the greater good. We don’t even think about it.
What did you think of this column’s opening paragraphs? I’ll let you in on something: I didn’t write them. Nobody did. They were created by a machine, based on my simple instructions. And there are people who rely on this generative artificial intelligence to produce all of their “written” material.
Is this progress? As one observer asked, why should I be bothered to read something when no one could be bothered to write it?
But hold on! So many of these tech breakthroughs are absolute boons to people with a variety of disabilities. Phones, apps, QR codes, even generative AI are used in a growing number of ways to offer access and inclusion to millions of people.
We should strive, as Phil (and the Apostle James and the Book of Proverbs) says, to avoid favour. Assuming everybody uses their phone as a wallet is exclusionary. Tech should be available to make things easy, but not to make demands on us.