She fumbled with the touchscreen while the line behind us grew heavy with sighs, and suddenly I saw how every beep of that machine was telling her she'd outlived her welcome in a world that now speaks only in swipes and clicks.
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The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting that particular grocery store pallor over everything.
My mother's hands, spotted with age and still elegant despite the arthritis, hovered uncertainly over the touchscreen. Behind us, I could hear the shuffle of impatient feet, the barely suppressed sighs, the weight of collective frustration pressing against our backs. She touched the screen gently, almost apologetically, and nothing happened. She pressed harder. The machine beeped angrily, flashing an error message about an unexpected item in the bagging area.
"I'm sorry," she said to no one in particular, though everyone was watching. "I'm so sorry."
In that moment, watching her shoulders curve inward with embarrassment, I saw it all so clearly. The world has developed a thousand small ways to tell older people they're in the way, that they're moving too slowly, thinking too slowly, adapting too slowly to keep up with the rest of us racing toward some undefined finish line.
The speed of belonging
When did we decide that speed equals competence? That quick fingers on a touchscreen are more valuable than steady hands that have kneaded bread, sewn quilts, written letters in careful cursive? During my years teaching high school, I watched technology transform from a tool into a gateway, and now it seems to have become a wall.
The self-checkout machine is just one example, but they're everywhere once you start looking. The parking meters that only take apps. The doctor's offices that require online check-ins. The restaurants where you have to scan a QR code just to see a menu. Each innovation promises convenience, but convenience for whom?
My mother can balance a checkbook in her head, remember every birthday in our extended family, and navigate by landmarks that have long since been torn down. But put her in front of a screen that changes its interface every few months, and suddenly she's made to feel foolish. The knowledge and skills she's accumulated over seven decades are rendered irrelevant by a software update.
The invisible line
There's a moment in everyone's life when they cross from being seen as relevant to being seen as an obstacle. For women especially, this line comes early and without warning. One day you're visible, valued, consulted. The next, you're background noise.
I experienced this myself around sixty, walking into stores where salespeople looked through me to help younger customers. Speaking up in meetings only to have my ideas repeated by someone half my age and suddenly heard. The world stops seeing you as someone with something to contribute and starts seeing you as someone taking up space.
But watching my mother at that self-checkout, I realized the cruelty has intensified. It's not just invisibility anymore. It's active exclusion. Every system designed without considering older users is a door being quietly closed. Every impatient sigh in that grocery line was a message: you don't belong here anymore.
The myth of resistance
"Why don't older people just learn the technology?" I hear this question often, usually from people who grew up with smartphones in their hands. What they don't understand is that it's not about ability or willingness. Most seniors I know are eager to learn. The senior center where I eventually took computer classes was packed with gray-haired students furiously taking notes, determined to master email so they could see photos of grandchildren living across the country.
The issue isn't resistance to change. It's the pace of change and the assumption that everyone should keep up or be left behind. When my father worked as a mailman, he knew every person on his route by name. He could tell you who was struggling with illness, whose kid just got into college, who needed someone to check on them during a storm. That kind of deep, slow knowledge has no place in our quick-click world.
Have you noticed how every app assumes you'll intuitively understand its symbols? That you'll know a hamburger menu from a shopping cart icon? That you'll realize you need to swipe up, not click? These aren't universal languages. They're codes that exclude anyone who hasn't been inducted into the digital generation.
The cost of efficiency
In our rush toward efficiency, what exactly are we racing toward? While helping my mother with her smartphone recently, I watched her try to type a text message. Each letter took deliberation. Autocorrect kept changing her words. What would have been a two-minute phone call became a fifteen-minute struggle with a tiny keyboard.
"Wouldn't it be easier to just call?" I suggested.
"Nobody answers phones anymore," she replied.
She was right. We've created a world where the most human form of communication, hearing another person's voice, has become an intrusion. We've prioritized the efficiency of asynchronous messaging over the warmth of real-time connection. And in doing so, we've pushed aside those who still remember when conversation was an art, not an inconvenience.
When my mother struggled with Alzheimer's in her final years, I learned about different kinds of time. There was the rushed, productive time of the working world, and there was her time, slow and circular, where stories were told again and connection mattered more than information. I'm beginning to think she had it right.
Finding our way back
What would it look like to design a world that honors both speed and slowness? That values the teenager's quick adaptability and the elder's deep wisdom? It wouldn't actually be that hard. Stores could maintain checkout lanes with cashiers alongside self-checkout. Restaurants could offer paper menus along with QR codes. Doctor's offices could answer their phones.
More importantly, we could remember that impatience is a choice. That sigh in the grocery line, that eye roll when someone doesn't immediately understand a touchscreen, these are decisions we make about how to treat each other. Every time we choose patience instead, we push back against a culture that measures human worth by processing speed.
I eventually helped my mother with the self-checkout that day. Together, we figured out the produce codes and the payment screen. The line behind us grew, but I stopped caring. Let them wait. Let them remember that efficiency isn't everything, that sometimes the most radical act is to move at a human pace.
Final thoughts
Last week, I wrote about finding purpose after retirement, but perhaps the greater challenge is maintaining our sense of belonging in a world increasingly designed for the young and quick. Every generation eventually becomes the one struggling with the self-checkout machine. The question is whether we'll remember this feeling when it's our turn to wait in line, or whether we'll sigh and shuffle our feet, forgetting that we too will someday need patience from a world that has little left to spare.
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