These are all huge opportunities

Trendsetter: Since the publication of his book ‘The Methuselah Plot’ (‘Das Methusalem-Komplott’), demographic changes have been the focus of debate in Germany. An interview with Dr. Frank Schirrmacher, author and publisher of the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”.

Dr. Schirrmacher, three years after your book, the ‘Methuselah Plot’ (‘Methusalem-Komplott’) – do you think we are now ready to face our demographic development?

Not at all. But as more and more people are being confronted with the fact that more and more of us are getting older, the rethinking process has started in many small areas.

In the business sector, can you recognize any initial steps toward the “revolutionary rethink” that you demand?

Absolutely. Gradually, more and more businesses are coming to the point where they say that they need to rethink and to consider how long their human resources can actually work and what conditions need to be in place to cater for that. What can specific people still do at the age of 65, and what do they still want to contribute?

Why is the issue of ageing still a taboo?

We must discard many behavioral patterns, some of which are thousands of years old. It’s like an update for our brains. We haven’t even realized yet that we have gained an incredible wealth of resources through this extension to our healthy life expectancy; and we’re not using them because the old program is still running in our brains. You’re no longer efficient at 50, and at 60 it’s time to start preparing for pre-retirement. In the USA and Japan, this sort of thinking has been old-fashioned for years. A positive revolution is gradually getting into gear, which will help us to realize that retirement is an anomaly, an exception that should only come round much, much later in life. Many companies are already regarding this demographic development not as a problem, but as an opportunity. I’m sure that in future we will no longer drive to the office from the age of X and work in a block of eight hours any more; we will be much more flexible for both our own good and that of the companies.

Will we still be able to afford a welfare society in the future?

That’s a very fair question. We will be able to afford it if we succeed in adapting conditions to the human life expectancy. That depends on what we do in the next 15 years. We’ll only be able to do it if we can make it clear to people that you’ve got a superchip up here, a brain that will work a lot longer than you think, and you can do something to help it. For instance, Nokia sends 50-year-olds to university to
study engineering science. The positive approach is to consider how we can draw people out of this musty world of old age – the phase that is left to stagnate as the “silver generation” and realizethat even at 60 we still have as long to live as people used to have for their whole life.

Old people will participate much longer in social processes and…

Precisely. There is a new resource on the market, and it’s called “life time”. At the same time, this concept is being reinforced by the fact that, thanks to the Internet, even people in a wheelchair are no longer cut off from business life. Internet shopping will gradually become even more important than it already is. We will also set even greater store by monitoring and communication systems, at the very least for providing good care.

Will we need an ID card to get Internet access?

Of course, even just for security reasons. The markets are already reacting with cellphones and are integrating GPS transmitters into handsets, so that children who have responsibility can see when their older relatives leave for a specific area. In future, we will look after our grandparents in the same way as we now look after our children. If they take medication, they will send a text message to a central office; if the text message does not arrive, the center will respond and ask: Have you taken your medication? All these points are only being carried out in pilot projects today, but soon they will be part of the “basic service” everywhere. Hundreds of new markets will open up. For instance, one guy had the brilliant idea of supplying reading glasses for five euros in supermarkets, and so he discovered a point of sale that no one else had thought of before. A fantastic niche. Or let’s take light, acoustics – at the moment, everything is designed for young eyes and ears. These are all huge opportunities and markets.

To close, let’s take a trip through time: Old people reaching the end of their lives with RFID chips – does that fill you with hope or fear?

Technological aids that make ageing not only bearable but perhaps even more pleasant and above all safer I’m certainly not afraid of that. But even I cannot make light of the issue of ageing. Growing old from the age of 80 is an almost philosophical process that you have to prepare yourself for. I simply expect a corresponding development: The possible care services provided by younger people will become more and more scarce and perhaps even rationed. So I would much prefer any help that may come from technical developments to having to rely on some aggressive or overworked carer. I think that, on this point, a general change of attitude will come very soon.