You are right, this is wrong and we should -everyone within the scope of their influence- change it.
Not only the elderly feel irrelevant, but also many young people who unfortunately the system molds based on the interests of very few. However, there is always a way and it is up to you to find it, just as disruptive artists do.
The young feel very irrelevant, because they live their life treating people as disposable objects - making themselves disposable in the process. They chase meaning by trying to make themselves feel important by doing things that are of little importance.
An attitudinal problem that undoubtedly converges on a larger one: existential.
Changing attitudes is not easy by virtue of the fact that we expose our system of values and beliefs determining how we act. If someone considers you disposable and uses you, they should not complain after they discard him too, in short, they are apples from the same basket. The worst thing is that being frivolous and utilitarian, they also become inconsequential, meaningless in life, a very sad experience that plagues most of our society.
I think we have to go back to the simple, to what made us successful in the natural world and that we have lost in the artificiality of our cities.