Progress has taken us way beyond anything our parents or grandparents could ever have imagined. How could they have anticipated the infinite uses of digital technology, and among these, the creation of monitoring meters that can keep a long-distance watch on seniors who live alone?

These same seniors may look on these digital means of keeping tabs on their health as a heaven-sent solution because many of them do not want to give up the independent living they have grown accustomed to. They balk at the idea of leaving their homes, their familiar and comforting environments and their circle of friends (even if it is dwindling by the sheer inevitability of Nature) to enter ‘safe’ retirement homes or to join the homes of family members prepared to care for them. Independent they have been and independent they will stay, they insist.

Their children in faraway cities or countries, long flown from the nest, now with children of their own and hectic schedules, would need to juggle their time, energy and resources to take up the responsibility of care-giving and they probably welcome the impersonal watch provided by digital care. They need not worry if they have not spoken to elderly parents for a week or a fortnight or a month. Their machines are on the watch!

As for elders who never quite got the hang of e-mail or SMS or WhatsApp, they can now remain happily passive as sensors and glow-on-movement items provide e-care. All they need to do is let those machines be installed in their homes or on their person and their vital signs are monitored, they are digitally reminded to take their medication, and so much else. They can continue to shuffle around in their private and familiar domain, concentrating on the things they enjoy - and they can happily forget about the rest of the world.

But is this really a great way to ensure that they remain injury-free and their offspring enjoy being free of continuous caregiving?

What we recall of our grandparents’ time – and our parents when they became grandparents and slowly slid into old age – was that there was always someone within reach. A real live neighbour, friend, cousin, or child who was close on hand and could be called upon at the first sign of trouble. True, none of these people may have had the expertise to understand what it meant when someone suddenly began to drag a foot or complain of an aversion to food, but they did make sure that they saw the doctor – and another human interaction took place.

When we hear horror stories of elders who live alone and collapse and cannot reach their phones or front doors to get help, the concept of digital monitoring seems the answer to all prayers. And yet, the human element seems sadly lacking. What can take the place of a real-time real-life human observer? Would it not be better to have someone reliable around the house to keep a vigilant eye on a senior? To our long-gone grandparents, to our parents and to us it may seem so – but obviously these inventions came about because of a need. Perhaps the time has come for us to accept this brave new world, where machines are on the job.

And by the time this innovative generation that has made those digitalized monitors reaches the state of requiring them (provided they don’t beat the odds and die young), it will be the norm. Nothing to discuss or think twice about. Being ‘hooked up’ will be routine – and the human touch can happily play hooky.

—Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.