カテゴリー: 雑記

“The Elderly Who Can’t Keep Up with OS and App Updates”

I am one of those elderly people who fears the new. It might be too early for me to boldly declare that, given my age, but lately, the speed of OS and app updates has left me secretly bewildered. “Why do they have to change things?” “Please don’t add that new button.” “Where did that icon go?” Muttering like this, I pitifully watch my fingers fumble across the screen. Born in the Showa era, sprinting through Heisei, and now standing in the so-called future of Reiwa, I find the ground beneath my feet quietly resurfaced with unfamiliar materials.

People are creatures who fear change. It’s a fundamental instinct, acquired over the course of evolution. Our brains judge it safer and more certain to walk familiar paths. Don’t touch unknown plants. Close your ears to unfamiliar phrases. This caution has saved us from disaster time and time again. But the challenge before us now isn’t a beast’s path or poisonous flora—it’s the intangible, tasteless “change” of OS and apps.

In my younger days, I knew nothing of the fear of plunging into the waves of change. “Update instantly when a notification arrives” was the obvious choice. I would get excited by the vividness and shine of new versions and features. Even if the user interface was totally overhauled, I’d straightforwardly think, “Well, this is easier to use.” But as I’ve grown older, welcoming the “new” has become harder. I notice in myself the desire for today to be just like yesterday, for tomorrow to be just like today—a sense of “homeostasis.” I want to remember the feel of yesterday. I want to reach safely for my icons on the screen, as if reassured by my grandma’s half-knitted ball of yarn.

Homeostasis is a mechanism for protecting life, yet sometimes it becomes a stubborn cup refusing new water. Take, for instance, a major OS update. Every time I get a notification, my finger trembles in fear. What if something fundamental changes? What if I suddenly can’t do what I used to do? If I get lost in “update hell,” I lose my familiar operations and hear others’ cries—“How do I arrange widgets?”—echoing my own despair.

Of course, not everyone fears change. Curious young people still cheer for new apps and features. For them, a user interface overhaul is an adventure into the unknown. But for those of us in middle age and older—especially those not born as digital natives—new versions feel like an invasion. Services supposed to become “more convenient” end up feeling inconvenient. It’s like jet lag: we’re thrown into a future city where we can’t even read the signs and are left feeling helpless.

Resisting change and desiring the status quo is both instinct and a deeply human trait. Yet, in this era of rapid change, we must somehow keep up. In days gone by, just getting used to dialing a home phone was enough. Now, waves of information never stop coming, and what was convenient yesterday can become unusable today. Late at night, I catch myself gripping my smartphone and tapping “Later” to delay updates again and again, sharing my aging parents’ feelings of surprise and anxiety.

What I truly wish for is progress that keeps its usability. But the wave of technological advancement moves on, ignoring our individual wishes. It sometimes feels like we have only two choices: keep up, or be left behind. Bearing grumbles and dismay, today again I stare at the update notification, silently hoping “Let tomorrow be just like today.”

Yet, change comes for all of us, eventually. Not just in OS and apps, but in our surroundings, our relationships, and even ourselves—nothing stays the same as yesterday. Homeostasis and change: as we move back and forth between them, perhaps we imperfectly gain our own sort of “evolution.” Even swallowed by waves of change, wavering between “the sorrow of sameness” and “the hardship of transformation”—that might be what it means to be human.

Today again, I swipe away the update notification, hoping to stay with the old ways a bit longer. Yet perhaps, tomorrow, I’ll gather my courage and hit “Update Now,” surrendering myself just a little to the flow of the times. That’s what I find myself thinking.