The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has started digital aging. What is this for?

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has launched digital aging, aiming at enabling the elderly to enjoy the convenience brought by the development of science and technology and bridging the digital divide. Young people are born in the era of various digital technologies and devices. They naturally use their mobile phones to pay attention to the latest information, and use various social software to easily take a taxi, shop, make an appointment, register and pay. Old people rarely follow in the footsteps of young people. Due to economic, social and cultural reasons, the elderly who are far away from digital culture are becoming digital refugees.

The purpose of this is to enable the elderly to use new equipment. China is one of the countries with the fastest aging population in the world. Most elderly people can't use the Internet skillfully. Due to lack of skills, limited education level and insufficient equipment, more and more elderly people, even some middle-aged people, have been or have been left behind by the digital and intelligent world. Generally speaking, with the growth of age, people's ability to accept and respond to new things has declined to varying degrees. Many young people are familiar with the operation of mobile phones, which is quite difficult for the elderly. The existence of many redundant functions also affects the user experience of the elderly on the mobile Internet to some extent. Some activities actually have various complicated links such as input, confirmation and identification. Some young and middle-aged people who often use mobile phones also need to bear a lot of trouble, not to mention those elderly people who are not skilled in using smart phones.

Doing so can make the elderly better integrate into this society. The epidemic in 2020 also highlights the phenomenon that the elderly can't keep up with the times. Due to the need of epidemic prevention, health codes and contactless transactions force the elderly to change the original way of receiving information and using information technology in order to adapt to digital life more quickly. From the perspective of the elderly, digital life is sometimes not so necessary, and the level of using digital media skills sometimes does not reflect the degree of digital integration of the elderly. Only by thinking and looking up from the perspective of the elderly can we better find the difference between young people and the elderly. This kind of thinking without value judgment is the most important thing in studying the future problems of the elderly.

The action of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology alone is far from enough. We also need our joint efforts to enable the elderly to skillfully use new products in the Internet age, such as mobile phones. We should help them accept digital life as soon as possible. First, encourage learning. Encourage the elderly to use smart phones and actively try some simple mobile applications. Besides using mobile phones to communicate and get information, they also try to watch videos, pay by mobile phone, mobile navigation, taxi service and other convenient services.