The rapid development of digital technologies has greatly enhanced convenience in our daily lives, including digital kiosks. Digital kiosks are self-service machines that receive orders and take payments. They have been increasingly present over the past years in numerous cafes and fast-food restaurants, such as McDonald’s, largely to reduce labor costs. This process has been greatly accelerated following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic as more stores looked for contactless alternatives to keep the business running. Initially, this spread of kiosks in stores was received positively as a way to foster the economy as well as to provide more convenience to customers.

Nevertheless, this has largely left out a considerable segment of the Korean population: the elderly. Many older people have expressed frustrations over their difficulty in ordering through kiosks. Some can’t read the menu well due to the small fonts; some can’t even touch the screen because they can’t reach it; some don’t understand the menus because they are partially written in English, and many are not able to use computer interfaces because they are not familiar with them. Due to these types of difficulties, they often fail to order and are virtually forced out because of people waiting behind them. Now, many are hesitant to even enter restaurants.

This reflects the negative effects of kiosks, which not only cause a significant reduction of jobs but also cause inconvenience and psychological deprivation to the people who need the most care.

Various solutions to the problem have been suggested, such as creating an ‘Easy-Mode’ within the machine that displays bigger and Korean-friendly menu texts and allows for longer screen time as well as adding a button to call for assistance. However, nothing has yet been done to address the helplessness of the elderly before the kiosks.

This problem also represents the bigger social phenomenon of the digital gap in Korea. Park Chang-ho, a professor of information sociology at Soongsil University, said, “When buying train tickets at Seoul station, for example, only the elderly line up at the ticket counter because they are not used to digital devices like ticket kiosks. The problem has existed before, but [the novel] coronavirus has highlighted the issue.” Moreover, Science and ICT Minister Choi Ki-young have acknowledged the need for an inclusive digital economy, warning that the digital divide “could widen the social gap even further,” particularly in the coronavirus era. Therefore, the South Korean government as well as corporations need to promote an inclusive digital economy in our daily lives: one that everyone can enjoy without feeling left behind.

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