I was thinking the other day about the demographics of the Internet: especially message boards, social networking etc. and it occurred to me that the Internet is pretty ideal for old,retired people with a lot of time on their hands. It isn’t physically demanding, it allows for social contact with other people without getting out of your house and it’s cheap. Of course the problem is that most old people are not comfortable with computers not having grown up with them. But each passing year the retired are becoming more and more computer savvy. Someone who was 40 in the early 80’s when computers were spreading will be around retirement age today.
This will become a flood a few decades from now when the generation which grew up in the 80’s and 90’s start retiring. Whatever the Internet looks like then, I suspect old people will have a disproportionately large presence online. What do you think?
On one hand, our central government views Tah Intahwebz as the source of all evil, good only for piracy (they’re socialist so they’re not supposed to be against porn).
On the other, tons of local governments (at the city or region level) have programs to teach retired folks how to use the internet, that there’s more to it than webpages, how to set up email, skype, etc etc. It’s enormously popular with the retired folks, specially if they have someone nearby that they can call when they run into a glitch. My mother (now 67) took a course three years ago, after I told her about Skype (“if we talk computer to computer instead of over the phone it’s FREE?! Where can I learn that?”); she was the youngest woman in the group until a batch of fresh docs from the local hospital joined. The grandmothers were happily chatting away with their grandkids while the docs (all of whom had managed to get through medical school without ever touching a computer) went through their first game of Minesweeper…
When I play WoW in the mornings, I run into:
stay-at-home-housewives
retired or unemployed women
retired or unemployed men
students
more or less in that order (I’m a consultant, so if I’m between projects I can play in the morning).
I’m 66 and I was fortunately enough to start a new job as a bank examiner when I was 43 and they were just starting out using computers on the exams (huge, “portable” computers we had to lug around to the banks). So, I got used to using a computer. No internet, yet though. When I left FDIC in 1995 I had read some things about the internet, mostly for sharing medical information, and a memo saying FDIC was probably going to have a site. When I mentioned it to a fellow employee he had no idea what I was talking about when I said “internet”. I love new things, so in 1998 I bought a computer and when I was laid up recovering from hip implants, I experimented in how to use it. I didn’t know anything, like email accounts, and what AOL was (most people thought you “had” to use AOL). I just thought it was a miracle, being in contact with people around the world and information at your fingertips. But, most of my women friends are limited to using email. My kids were inspired to get a computer in 1998 because of me. I think you are so right about it being a window to the world because I live in a small town in Maine most of the time, and I can reach out to the world; I can order stuff I can’t get there at the Wal-Mart. I wish more older people used the internet. The best thing is that no matter where I am I can keep in instant contact with my three sons. For example, here in Krakow, Poland, where I am now for dental work, I have a phone but I can’t call out. The German cell I have charges 5 million dollars to call anywhere but Germany! ha. I just love the internet.
My mother, now in her 70s, had email before I did, even though I was working in a high-tech company at the time.
She’s now retired, but still very active online. Sends emails, has a facebook page, spends a lot of time surfing the web, etc.
It is ideal for her, but she’s not typical at all. My mother-in-law is a couple years younger than my mother, and is convinced that the Internet is all porn and lying bloggers (she doesn’t really know what a blog is, but she knows they’re bad because the TV tells her.)
It may be available, but in a broad statement a lot of the elderly resist change. My mother and father are both approaching 90. Mum is on the Internet, I doubt that Dad can turn on a flashlight.
But even when Mum is on the Internet it is for email- not socialising purposes.
I first used a computer 45 years ago, so there are some folk at retirement age and beyond who have used computers a very long time. In addition, a lot of people find it easy to learn new things when they are older. (Though my father aged 96, sadly, won’t use one, even though we all think he should be able to learn things like email).
My elderly mother is far more computer-literate than I. She spends much of her time on-line - for one, making & downloading onto Youtube movies of our son doing cute stuff.
I’m 81 and got my first computer in 1981 and have used them extensively at home and at work before I retired. I’m pretty much of a techno-geek, so I wouldn’t be without them. My first was an old Commodore VIC-20, then a Commodore 128, then I built my first 286, and so it goes. I continued to build my own until it got to a point where I could buy one cheaper than I could assemble the same one, and outfits like Dell pretty much let you “build” the computer you want to suit your needs.
As to social networking, bah, only the SDMB for me, and definitely no Twitter or blogging, but for research, buying stuff, news, email, etc, it is wonderful.
I can’t dispute your statement that “most old people are not comfortable with computers” as I don’t know most old people, but my experience is that a vast number of elderly use them extensively. All of my friends from age 60 up to 89 have and use them all the time. I don’t know if any studies have been done as to the percentge of us geezers who use them, but I have to guess it is a lot higher than you think.
One would have to be old indeed not to have at least a nodding acquaintance with computers. If you have had a desk job anytime in the last 30 years, you almost certainly have had some time on a computer. We were using the big clunky Zeniths back in about 1981, and I’ve owned a PC since the first 8088s came on the market.
I’m 62 this year and retired, and just went through about an hour online with AT&T to get this new aircard to function properly. I routinely use Facebook to stay in touch with my kids, and of course, visit this board and the other one. I also do all my banking and investments online. Now, I’m not up to date technologically, since I have no need to text anybody, nor to own a Bluetooth, but can certainly navigate well enough.
My father uses the internet to check e-mail, visit message boards for his interests, send up updates as they workkamp, and he even tried to get on Facebook. Alas, the man has dial-up (it’s cheaper) and got very frustrated because Facebook wouldn’t load. I’m hoping on their travels he’ll hit some spots with Wi-Fi and try again.
I recall some little newspaper article a few years back (no, no cite, folks) and the gist of it was “ooh, look, let’s interview this chap who runs a class to teach senior citizens about computers”. The tone was a little patronising until the guy teaching the course remarked that, considering some of his students would have been flying Spitfires when hardly aged 20, he thought they could probably face the horrors of a keyboard.
I had the impression it was a fairly young baby journalist, so that shut him up.
Oh and my father (75) uses the net, although he would despise Facebook things, but my mother never did take to the computer at all - faced with a keyboard, she just started fearing the wrath of the school typing teacher and muttering about the quick brown fox and the lazy dog.
My mom waited until my father died to get a computer, but now her home is set up with a LAN, two laptops and a desk top, and all sorts of new gizmos to help her be able to see it all (she has AMD, and is now almost completely blind)
She like it because it enables her to keep in touch with friends and relations that are also older and less mobile. I expect to run into her in Facebook any moment now!
My 79 year old mother wants nothing to do with it. She says that a computer would be “just one more thing taking up space”. I try to tell her that a small laptop would take almost no space, and since my brother currently lives with her and has DSL and a wireless network she would have free net access. My brother has even offered to set her up as a user on his laptop which removes the “one more thing” objection, but she just doesn’t seem interested.
She still pays her bills by writing and mailing checks, although she has come around to the idea of automatic deductions for some of her regular bills. She still hand writes letters to various relatives around the country even though I’ve told her that should could send all of the emails she wants at no cost, and nearly everyone she writes to has email, including other people her age.
I receive email regularly from a 90 year old friend. She’s not the first in that age group to keep in touch with me through email. So much depends on their attitudes.
I’m sixty-five. I learned FORTRAN at University in the sixties. My wife is only sixty-three. She spends half her life on ebay. My mother-in-law (wife’s mum) is eighty-two. She has both a PC and a Mac. I emailed her today in response to an email she sent me. All my siblings are of a similar vintage to me. All are more than competent with IT.
I think the gray army has already discovered technology and even embraced it.
From this thread it would appears so, though the SDMB is probably not a representative sample. There is probably a class and education dimension to it as well; older people who were exposed to computers at university like you or at work in white-collar jobs are more likely to be online once they retire.
My parents (both 62) are probably more computer savvy than I am. Mom has e-mail and message board contacts all over the world, and Dad is an Excel whiz–because he has to keep track of his golf scores somewhere. My family has been pro-computer since the Christmas we opened up a big box that said “Commodore VIC 20” and I asked what the heck I was supposed to do with this? (Answer–play Hangman).
My grandmother is 87, and delights in e-mailing everybody she knows on a regular basis. I don’t know how good she is beyond that (and she seems to have some trouble with the “reply to all” option), but she’s certainly not afraid of technology.
My mother went kicking and screaming into the Internet Age, and to this day only uses it to participate in travel message boards. The e-mail system she uses at home is different from the one she uses at work, so she doesn’t e-mail from home because it confuses her. She has a facebook profile, but she refuses to use facebook because she fears people are spying on her through fb.
Mrs. Homie’s mother bought a computer, downloaded a couple of games, and hasn’t gotten on-line since.
Neither of our fathers has ever turned on a computer.
