Nick Stanhope is the CEO of Big Problems, a company that takes a traditional approach to social and environmental issues by using messages, calls to action, and campaigns to encourage behaviors and target audiences. However, their new approach focuses on creating tangible products and tools that facilitate behavior change in a practical and desirable way to address issues like inter-generational dislocation. One such product is Historypin, a website that allows users to pin historical photos to maps and share them.
MAJOR SOCIAL CHANGES….
Last 50 years, number of people over 65 tripled, will triple again in next 50 yearsAND
Number of 85+ have more than doubled from 1983 to today, and will double again by 2033
(1983 0.6 million
2008 1.3 million
2033 3.2 million)
In the 50s and 60s, 40% of elderly people in the UK lived in a household containing one of their children. In the Nineties, this dropped to approx. 10%
While 90% of communications amongst 11-18 year olds is digital…
….6.4 million people 65+ offline
AND WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUNG AND OLD OF THESE CHANGES?
Firstly, negative perceptions have become engrained
67% / 2/3 of Britons agree that old & young people live in separate worlds
1/3 young people view over 70s as incompetent and incapable
600k 65+ year olds leave their home once a week or less
My grand-mother is on the right and her sister, my great aunt on the left, working as Land Girls in 1943
Gran land girl story
And famous old pictures…
Like this one taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt in Times Square on VJ Day, 14th August, in 1945…of a returning sailor kissing an unsuspecting nurse. It became an iconic image and prompted 1000s of similar stories of celebration and relief to be shared.