The term ageism was introduced by the gerontologist Robert N. Butler in 1969, applying it to the discrimination of people based on age. The focus was on the elderly, although sometimes young people are also victims of discrimination, such as when they cannot get a job due to lack of experience, due to misgivings about the bad press dedicated to boys and girls. However, there is no doubt that those who mostly suffer from ageism are those who are on the way to old age.
An effect capable of inducing older people to devalue themselves, to despise the sum of years, experience. When it is considered that only youth is a value, it is the plastic surgery clinics, the cosmetic factories and the gyms that make August.
There is a collateral ageism based on the difficulties that the elderly suffer when using new technologies. But there are also express ageisms, such as that caused by the banking system closing offices, forcing people to communicate online, to walk far in search of an agency, depriving some towns of banks.
On the other hand, another negative view occurs when it is taken for granted that mature workers lead to competition between generations, ignoring truly decisive factors: digitization, robotics, artificial intelligence are progressively absorbing jobs, there will not be one for all applicants, of any age. Yuval Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens, uses a terrible qualifier for the massive unemployed class. He calls it a useless class, since the economy no longer needs it.
At the end of the day, old age has gone from being revered to being despised. Disdain what older people can offer and teach. For the technological society they are no longer useful, it is the youth that must train them. However, ageism is not one-sided, as the labor market proves. Young people also suffer from it, due to the competition from very intelligent and, moreover, durable artifacts.
