Digital first, elderly last

How to order food when most restaurants accept orders only through touchscreen kiosks. How to hail a cab when few taxis stop unless summoned by an app. How to see a film when many cinemas are unmanned, their tickets sold at self-service machines or online.

How to manage one’s finances when banks shutter more and more brick-and-mortar branches and reserve their best rates only for app users. How to buy train or bus tickets when staffed counters become increasingly rare, replaced by electronic kiosks — and many seats sell out online within minutes.

These are just a few examples of the everyday challenges faced by many older South Koreans — the largely unspoken casualties of the country’s frenzied rush toward digitalization. While the “digital divide” is a global phenomenon, the gap feels especially acute in South Korea, one of the most connected and rapidly aging societies in the world.

Korea routinely ranks among global leaders in digital innovation and tech infrastructure. The government has made artificial intelligence (AI) a top policy priority, with the ambitious goal to become one of the world’s three leading AI powers.

Yet even as the country champions a hyperconnected future, many of its older citizens are being left behind, unable to access many essential services that have migrated online.

A recent government survey found that more than 60 percent of South Koreans aged 60 or over lack the basic digital skills required to use public or commercial services — compared with just 6 percent of adults under 40. Yet their struggles remain largely invisible, surfacing only in the occasional news reports or social media posts — glimpses into a reality that chips away at their confidence and self-worth.

Media reports describe older baseball fans being turned away at stadiums, looking defeated after discovering that most tickets had already been snapped up online and that the handful available at ticket offices had sold out quickly. Social media posts tell desperate older fans, cash in hand, to approach young people in line at stadiums to ask whether anyone might spare a ticket.

One viral post recounted a taxi driver describing his daily morning ritual: driving to Seoul’s main bus terminal to collect older passengers arriving from rural areas for hospital visits. Many, unable to use ride-hailing apps, would otherwise wait for hours at taxi stands, watching app-savvy passengers glide off.

Elsewhere, a woman in her 70s visiting an unmanned cinema asked a journalist to buy her a ticket at a kiosk. “I wish I had been born as one of the young people these days,” she lamented.

My 73-year-old mother is among them. For years she attended a harmonica class at a local community center, regularly filling out paper forms and paying fees via ATM or online banking.

Alas, under a new government policy, all prospective students — most of them older adults — must now enroll through a state-run app, a process involving what feels like an endless loop of online verification and credit card registration. After hours wrestling with her smartphone, my mother gave up and went to the center in person to plead for help.

She was not alone. The center had already assigned a young employee to shepherd applicants through the process. Even that worker, in his 30s, struggled for nearly an hour to complete the byzantine process — a tragicomic illustration of what might happen when technology meets bureaucracy.

“Our society is racing ahead so fast,” my mother said. “How can old people like me keep up?”

There are signs that policymakers are recognizing these challenges. The landmark Digital Inclusive Act — aimed at lowering barriers to online access and participation — was passed by the Assembly in 2024 and the law took effect in January this year.

Now many administrative offices offer digital literacy classes to teach older adults how to buy tickets online, navigate mobile apps, access essential government services or retrieve medical records. Some even dispatch buses outfitted with kiosk machines to reach older adults in rural areas.

Yet the scale of the challenge is daunting. Those aged over 65 already account for 21 percent of South Korea’s 50 million population; by 2034 they are expected to make up more than 31 percent as the country ages rapidly. A recent study shows that older adults with lower digital proficiency are more likely to be socially isolated, and those unable to use smartphones are 2.7 times more likely to suffer depression than those who can.

South Koreans take great pride in their country’s digital prowess. It may be time to reckon more seriously with those stranded in its wake.

Jung Ha-won is a journalist and the author of "Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea’s Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women’s Rights Worldwide.”