Often Overlooked

It’s no secret that in today’s shallow world of fashion, movies, and TV, that youth is glorified. People spend tens of thousands of dollars on plastic surgery to stay young looking. However, seniors are starting to get recognized. Whether it’s the aging gracefully Sally Fields on the hit TV show Brothers and Sisters, or Bob Lutz as executive of GM, who at age 77, besides working with GM, still flies his jet; being a senior no longer means being out of the limelight of life. Let’s face it, people are living longer.

The tech world, however, is a different story. There are very few useful sites created for seniors that aren’t attached to a federal website. This was an obstacle I ran into when developing the Community Diner. Finding content geared toward seniors is difficult to say the least. I remember bring up this concept among a group of developers. The attitude came off as “We would rather work on something that interests us.” I felt differently, knowing all too well that some of America’s smartest people are fifty and older. Is that not interesting enough? Surely they have stories to share and lessons to be learned. Right now the youth of this country still dictates what technology gets developed. This holds true for the web development community also.

Older Americans have become more computer savvy in recent years. Many have had to head online for news as many local newspapers have dried up. In addition, many have learned that computers are a great way to stay in touch with friends and family, without the high cost associated with phone and mail.

I believe that over the next ten years, our aging population will play a powerful role in technology. It’s a demographic that deserves to be heard and will. If we could only take all of our smartest programmers off video game development and transfer that creative spirit to projects that help develop high quality interactive websites and sites that are geared toward a wider range of the population. Granted, there is lots of talent out there in all fields. However, some of our best and brightest have devoted themselves to a narrow segment of the population completely overlooking our countries growing need for diverse technology.