The Power of Intergenerational Connectedness

 

Photo from WBUR website

By Frank Filocomo

I often remark that the elderly are like invisible people: We get irritated when they walk too slow, take too much time sorting through their expired coupons at the grocery store check-out, or strain to hear us when we speak to them. 

To many young and middle-aged people, they're nothing more than a burden. Their utility, in other words, is all used up. 

The fact of the matter, though, is that many elderly people are the best of us. 

In Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where I live, I often see old men wearing Vietnam veteran caps. These guys are bad asses, and God knows what they've seen. My dad makes it a habit to offer to buy them breakfast. 

We owe them a debt of gratitude. 

When they are unwell, we should see it as our problem.

According to The University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging from 2024, 33.4% of respondents between the ages of 50-80 reported feeling a lack of companionship "some of the time" or "often."

This is inexcusable. 

One group, though, is taking it upon themselves, not only to help ameliorate loneliness in the elderly, but to do it by engaging young people, many of whom also report feeling exceedingly isolated.  

Matter Neuroscience, a health and wellness company founded in 2019, has taken some innovative steps towards bridging the gap between lonely boomers and zoomers. 

As reported by CNN, "a team from Matter Neuroscience has refurbished two old payphones and set one up at a coffee shop near Boston University, and the other at a retirement community in Nevada. The signs read, 'call a boomer,' and 'call a zoomer,' and they automatically ring to the other side when you pick them up."

This is called intergenerational connectedness. The elderly need not be constrained to the company in their retirement communities. Using twenty-first century technology, they can easily be connected with a young person 3,000 miles away. 

Marilyn Onkka, a 70-year-old caller that CNN interviewed, said that "you can end up talking with somebody that - in our short lives, with the time we have left - can become a long-time friend." 

Here's a little bit from a WBUR article about the payphones:

When Marcantonio picked up the phone on BU’s campus, it rang a few times, then 73-year-old Maria Jaynes answered. Jaynes lives in Reno, Nevada, at a Volunteers of America senior affordable housing community. The payphone inside the senior center looks similar to the one in Boston, but instead, it reads “call a zoomer.”

Marcantonio and Jaynes talk about the weather, comparing the 20-degree chill in Boston to the 80-degree-and-sunny forecast in Reno. Marcantonio asks Jaynes what activities the senior center has planned for the week, and Jaynes tells him she likes playing bingo, doing puzzles and watching movies.

I hope more inventive projects like this catch on. There's no reason for anyone - whether they be boomers or zoomers - to be devoid of social connection.