Opinion | Technology: Barrier or benefit? It depends.

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Bernadette, age 92 and living in Minnetonka, hasn’t watched TV in her basement since her husband died 16 years ago. Yet every month, $12 was deducted from her account for a cable box rental, adding up to $2,304 for a service she never used.

In my work as a technology services coordinator at Senior Community Services, I hear similar stories frequently. Many of our clients don’t understand the technology, and, in some subtle way, they lose out on opportunities or pay for, literally and figuratively, their misunderstanding.

Our tech services staff was able to send someone to her home to disconnect the cable box. But this story is an example of many being bypassed by a digital world that wasn’t built with them in mind. They’re charged for services they don’t use, are targeted by scams and are excluded from essential resources that have moved exclusively online.

Vital services for older adults are being moved online in the name of efficiency and modernization. Social Security, Medicare and more are becoming impossible to access without technology that didn’t even exist when the intended recipients aged into them.

Retirement, which should be relaxing, becomes a frustrating tangle of technology to unweave in order to access basic benefits. Unfortunate considering it could be a resource that greatly augments real life.

Not everyone has broadband access either, or a working device, in addition to the skills to navigate it all. Assuming everyone does is either dangerously optimistic or willfully naive. And yet we’re cutting federal digital equity funding. How are we to ensure these essential systems remain accessible? Technology becomes a barrier, not a benefit.

Digital literacy isn’t a luxury. It’s health care access, financial safety and civic engagement. In Minnesota alone, hundreds of thousands of households lack basic broadband speed to support access to video telehealth.

If the connection is unstable, video calls with a doctor can drop, freeze or lag. To the average tech user, these glitches are minor annoyances. But for someone who isn’t tech-savvy, they’re debilitating. But with the end of programs like the Affordable Connectivity Program and the derailment of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, low-income and rural households are being cut off from both the infrastructure and the support they need to stay connected.

Even if we solve the infrastructure problem, anyone who has upgraded their cellphone in the past few years could tell you that services and devices are more expensive than ever. I would never recommend a refurbished, low-cost, generic-brand device to an older adult. They’re often buggy and their user experience is the least intuitive and user-friendly interface I’ve seen.

Thankfully, local programs are stepping in to help. Many libraries now offer computer help clinics, and nonprofits, like ours, hold digital literacy sessions at senior centers and community hubs across the metro.

They’re teaching people how to spot phishing scams, navigate safely online and use video calls to reconnect with family. They’re guiding folks through essential tasks like uploading tax documents, refilling prescriptions and applying for housing assistance. But these programs are patchworked together through short-term grants and nonprofit hustle. What we need is sustained investment.

Minnesota can lead the way by expanding digital equity funding to include older adults and rural communities explicitly. That includes not only broadband infrastructure, but also funding for community tech programs, embedding digital navigation into aging services and designing public systems with accessibility in mind.

Technology isn’t going away — it’s becoming more embedded in every aspect of daily life. If we want a truly inclusive, efficient and modern society, we must ensure that digital progress doesn’t come at the cost of leaving people behind.

Because no one should pay $2,304 for a TV they haven’t watched in 16 years.