Lockdown has worked in mysterious ways for many individuals — not least a swath of older people who found themselves engaging with technology in ways they would never previously have countenanced — in order to shop, bank, socialise and see family.
Pat Hackett, 75, is a prime example. Before the pandemic she “did a bit of email”, but that was about as far as it went, she says. Lockdown lassitude led her and her partner Stephen Walsh to Zoom-based exercise classes run by Inspired Villages, the retirement community where they live, and then to a busy online diary of quizzes, wine-tasting classes and social get-togethers.
“We also had to learn how to do all the grocery shopping online, as well as buying clothes and shoes,” Hackett adds. “I never used to do online banking either, but we do it all now — booking holidays, using comparison sites, the lot.”
Walsh believes that when a semblance of normality returns, they will go back to shopping “in the aisles”; but, he adds, “there are many other things we’ll never go back to. Online is just so…