HOW IT FEELS TO BE OLD
‘We wanted the young designers to feel “the three Fs”: the friction, fatigue and frustration that older adults feel’
MY HEAD cranes forward and my body is stiff and heavy, as if I’m carrying a load. I’m not quite sure what’s behind and around me, and this makes me anxious. Sitting down, I reach backwards with one hand for the chair. Getting up is difficult.
I’m in a research laboratory in Boston, a white warehouse space, though to a man in my condition it all looks hazy, uneven and yellow.
“That’s not legally blind right now,” says a voice to my right.
I try to turn my head, but it’s difficult.
“That’s just low vision,” adds the voice.
It’s Joseph Coughlin, the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) AgeLab, an institution established to help humanity prepare for the great gift of growing old. He’s a compact, peppy sort of chap in a bright bow tie, a dark blazer and bright blue trousers. I can’t really see his face.
I’m wearing a contraption that transports you into old age. It’s called the Age Gain Now Empathy System, or Agnes. Coughlin was pleased with the title because it sounded like the name of a nice old lady.
“I was a former defence and US Department of Transportation contractor,” he says. “I love my acronyms.”
Joseph came up with the idea for Agnes, which was then developed by the AgeLab team, for designers at the Daimler company, who were rethinking the
