The Times - UK (2022-05-26)

(Antfer) #1
2 Thursday May 26 2022 | the times

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E


sther Rantzen was
in the news this
week saying there
should be a
“minister for older
people” to ensure
that government
policies aren’t
ageist. She specifically referenced
the “digital revolution” that is
causing “distress and anxiety”
and, as an example, parking
apps, because they are fiddly
and complicated and demand
a smartphone and put some
older people off the driving
that could be essential for
their independence and
wellbeing.
I have to say, I love a
parking app. I have four
on my phone and can’t
say which one I like best.
I hope to visit a new area
soon so I can add a fifth.
I want the whole set
eventually. Luckily a
nearby council recently
changed from RingGo
without telling anyone,
so I did get a ticket but
also I’ve now added...
JustPark! Swings and
roundabouts, my friends,
swings and roundabouts.
Only joshing. I hate
those apps as much as
anyone. In my instance
they’re a fraught horror on top of
the fraught horror that is parking.
I am a bad parker but, thankfully,
there is usually a passing fella
happy to stop and stare
relentlessly as I pull out and start
again for the umpteenth time. It
always helps, that staring. They
may even feel sufficiently stirred
to do that round and round thing
with a finger. “Thanks, I wouldn’t
have nailed it without you,” I will
always say, before entering the
location number that the app will
say doesn’t exist. If I didn’t have
my heart set on collecting the full
set of apps — AppyParking, I’ve
got my eye on you — chances
are I wouldn’t bother to leave the
house either.
However, not all older people
are reluctant around technology.

My father, for example, was
willing and able almost up until
the end. He would go to the
Apple counter in John Lewis and
basically say: “What’s new? I’ll
have one.” He practically had a
video suite and could have edited
a Hollywood blockbuster by the
time he died. But my mother was
the opposite. My father bought
my mother a mobile phone that
she never wanted and never used
except the one time he called her.
This was when she took it out

with her for the first time.
“Denis,” she said when she
picked up. “How did you know
I was in Tesco?”
So it can go either way, but,
speaking solely from first-hand
experience, your technology
willingness does diminish with
age. I think I am a whizz, the
business and where it’s at, but
then the young people come
round and I see that you can put
cartoon hats on the people in
your photographs and also the
dog. I could learn that (I think
I could) but I can’t be bothered
because people and dogs look
fine without cartoon hats. You
skip one skill and then it’s
harder to catch up when the
next skill comes along. And so
it begins.

Or, to frame this more
scientifically, there is an
information theory called TAM
— technology acceptance model
— and TAM says when people
are faced with new technology
there are a number of factors that
affect uptake, such as support,
encouragement, physical ability
and so on. The most influential
factors arise from perception and,
most notably, perceived use (will
it be of use to me?) and perceived
ease of use. That’s what’s being
weighed up.
Older people, studies
show, are less likely to
deem a new technology
useful — “I don’t need to
put hats on things” or, in
my mother’s instance,
“Denis, I’ve managed
without a mobile all these
years.. .” — and less likely
to perceive it as easy to use.
Even if they have decided
that a digital innovation
would be worthwhile, says
one study, “they are not
sure they are able to get the
benefits because they
consider themselves not
skilled enough to use these
kinds of applications”.
Probably because they fell
behind. And the more you
fall behind, the more you’re
beset by “fear and anxiety”.
Which, inevitably, makes you fall
further behind.
There is, in fact, more to TAM
than this (look it up), but the long
and the short of it is: older people
feel that parking apps exceed
their skills set. But the answer is
staring us all in the face, surely.
Shall I go first? OK. Make it all
simpler. Focus on ease of use.
Couldn’t automatic number plate
recognition clock the car so all
you have to do is swipe your card
at a machine? Couldn’t we retain
pay and display as an option for
those who want it? As it stands,
and as I’ve said, if it weren’t for
wanting that full set, I would
seriously consider never parking
anywhere again. Also, I must
think of the fella with the twirly
finger. What will happen to him?

Back to


the office,


and BYO


working from home
and return to the office.
It brings the benefits
of “face-to-face,
collaborative working”,
he has said. It brings
“wider benefits for
the economy”, he has
said. Secretaries of
state should send a
“clear message” to
their workforce that
a “rapid return” is

expected, he has said.
Those who refuse
aren’t “pulling their
weight”, a Whitehall
source said. Rees-
Mogg left those notes
on the desks of those
who had yet to return:
“Sorry you were out
when I visited. I look
forward to seeing you
in the office very soon,”
he said.

The economy,
collaboration, pulling
your weight. It doesn’t
exactly sell it —
particularly when he
could have been
saying: “Wine at 4pm!”
Plus: “It’s BYO, but no
need to clear up after
yourself !”
Why he hasn’t
talked all that up, I
don’t know.

The government —
most vociferously Jacob
Rees-Mogg — has been
saying that civil
servants should stop

Deborah Ross


Come on, oldies, parking


apps are easy! Just


kidding, I hate them too


I


f you and I look at a pillar box,
the chances are we see
something that’s about 4ft high,
red and round. Yet if you and I
look at my body — and, to an
extent, yours and other people’s
— we see them differently. A
recent study by researchers at
the Medical University of Silesia in
Poland found that less than half of
their 750 participants were able
correctly to estimate whether they
were underweight, a normal weight,
overweight or obese.
Unreliable body image perception is
something the scientific community
has long acknowledged. Often we
associate this skewed perception with
eating disorders and body dysmorphia,
but body misperception is much more
pervasive than we might think.
Many more people without those
conditions do, in fact, “see” themselves
in ways that others do not. Think of
those times when you have looked in
the mirror and had an emotional
reaction to what you “see”, and maybe
even “feel” you’re having a “fat day”.
You might resort to yo-yo dieting and
bonkers exercise regimens, and have
low self-esteem.
Full disclosure: I am 57 and had
eating disorders in my twenties,
officially long gone, but the vestiges
definitely remain. These days I go in
for “disordered eating”, but, like a
functioning alcoholic, I work and
socialise normally, while recognising
that my eating habits are repetitive
and pretty controlled at home, less so
when I go out.
I define this as checks and balances.
Eat a larger supper and I restrict
myself the next day. Nothing too
unusual in that, and I admit that it is
so as not to gain undesirable pounds. I
own up to dissatisfaction with my body
(my stomach is not flat and I have a
bottom that feels too big to me).
As one expert told me, this dim view,
while not outright body dysmorphia,
has a label, namely “normative
discontent”. I wrote a book, Eating
Myself, 15 years ago, and called this
phenomenon “normal-abnormal”.
This affects most people, women in
particular, to a greater or lesser degree.
Normative discontent is prevalent,
says Dr Kamila Irvine, a lecturer in
body image and eating disorders at the
University of Lincoln. “Find me a
person who has nothing but nice
things to say about their body!”
It doesn’t necessarily follow that the
super-slim universally like what they
see in the mirror. The famously svelte

fashion designer Victoria Beckham
told Grazia magazine last week that
women today “want to have some
boobs — and a bum”. She believes
wanting to be thin is an “old-fashioned
attitude”, and that younger women
these days want to “look healthy and
curvy”. So where does this leave us?
With advances in technology and,
in turn, a greater understanding of
body image perception, the hope is
that people may be less spurred or
triggered to engage in extreme dieting
and overexercise and negative
thoughts about themselves. “The aim
is for more body acceptance,” Irvine
says, “or at least body neutrality. It’s
very hard to escape the diet culture
and society’s constructed beauty ideals
and standards, and some people are
more susceptible to these than others.”
So what is the mechanism whereby
so many of us — with eating disorders
or not — see ourselves differently
from how we actually are?
“That’s the holy grail, to understand
what people ‘see’,” Irvine says,
laughing. There’s nothing much the
matter with my eyesight and I am not
using hallucinogenic drugs, so how
come I put on phantom weight when I
look in the mirror?
I occasionally catch myself feeling
alarmed by the curves. It’s the
continuing battle between the rational
and irrational. I have learnt that I can
step away, say, “Get over yourself,
pull yourself together, this is absurd
self-indulgent twaddle”; step back
five minutes later and, lo and behold,
I have “lost” about half a stone. It’s
almost spooky how, with some effort,
I can shift what’s in the mind’s eye in a
matter of moments.
When Irvine says people can have a
negative and positive body image at
the same time, I agree entirely. “They
are related, of course, but separate.” I
know I am not living with obesity and,
equally, am not blind to the ribs on
show in my chest, but I definitely have
times when I “feel” fat.
Dr Katrin Giel, professor of
psychology, eating behaviour, at the
Medical University Hospital in
Tübingen, Germany, told me that
there’s always a higher order of
influences with body perception than
there is with “an outer, neutral object”
like, say, the pillar box. “There are very
emotive, evaluative influences about
our own bodies. What we judge to be
thin or overweight is very built into
our psychologies.”
One of her colleagues in the
Netherlands has an experiment in

Mirrors scare


me. Can an


avatar help?


Candida Crewe, 57, has felt unhappy


with her body since her twenties.


A new treatment could change that


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ALAMY
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