Content by: Wendy Busse-Coleman
I spent part of today on the phone with Xfinity, my internet service provider, and the experience left me thinking about something much bigger than a frustrating call. It reminded me why so many people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s feel dismissed, talked over, or pushed aside in a world that keeps insisting everything must be automated.
The voice on the line sounded human, at first, but everything else gave it away. It repeated the same lines no matter what I said. It ignored direct questions. It looped me through the same dead ends. It couldn't understand nuance, couldn't problem-solve, and couldn't connect the dots. It was AI pretending to be a person, and it was doing a poor job of it.
This isn't about resisting technology. Many of us have embraced it, learned it, adapted to it, and even enjoyed it. But there's a difference between using technology to help people and using it to wall people off.
What I experienced today wasn't support. It was a barrier.
For older adults, that barrier feels pretty different. After all those years of figuring out how to chat, stand up for yourself, and tackle issues with real people, having to talk to a machine that just doesn't get you can feel like a quiet kind of vanishing act. It kind of says that your time, your clarity, and your voice just don’t count.
That message is wrong.
People deserve honesty about who, or what, they're talking to. They deserve the option to reach a human without a battle. They deserve support that respects their intelligence and their lived experience.
Age doesn't make us invisible. Age doesn't make us less deserving of real help. Age doesn't make us a burden to be automated away.
If anything, age gives us the perspective to see when something isn't working and the courage to say it out loud.
Today's call was a reminder that customer service is drifting away from humanity at the exact moment when many people need more of it. And it's a reminder that we have every right to expect better.
Because 65 is just a number.
But being treated with dignity?
That's non-negotiable.
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