In a first draft for this column I wrote effusively in praise of the Internet and confessed awe for what I judged one of the greatest inventions in my lifetime. That initial version also recounted with admiration the history of the Internet and its child, the World Wide Web. Admittedly speaking from a deep ignorance of science and technology, I found something spiritual in the exchange of electronic impulses that fly through the air and through wires.
This early version assumed that many people my age and older actually use the Internet and find it as valuable as I do. Perhaps I was seduced by occasional publicity that claims older people are getting online at a rapid rate. Also I have met quite a few elders who feel very enthusiastic about email.
However, at the time of my first draft, I had not been able to locate any research that indicates how many older people actually use the Internet. It proved much more difficult than expected to locate solid data on this question and I was prepared simply to assume that the number of older users was substantial and growing larger day by day.
By now, however, I have located two pieces of research from respected sources that tell something about the numbers. To cite one here, the Pew Research Center in Philadelphia released a study in September 2000 with information that astonishes me. Pew reported that 87 percent of Americans over age sixty-five do not have access to the Internet.
Moreover, of people between ages fifty and sixty-four, 59 percent are not online. By contrast, 65 percent of those under thirty have such access.
More than half of people not on line are not even interested in getting there. The same percentage believe that they are not missing anything by passing up the Internet. In the words of the survey report, “the strongest Internet holdouts are older Americans, who are fretful about the online world and often don’t believe it can bring them any benefits.”
Some other reasons for what the Pew study terms the “gray gap” are also significant. Though most older people do not believe that Internet access is too expensive, about a third do. Of the seventy million “TechNos,” Americans who do not use computers at all, many live in low-income households.
Many others feel intimidated, though they may not wish to admit it. They bring to mind a college classmate of mine and his wife whom I encountered one day in passing. Charley confessed to me that they had bought a Macintosh some weeks before but had still not overcome their fear of unpacking it for use.
Others have little confidence about safety in the use of online services. A recent study sponsored by AARP found anxiety even among older people currently online. “Confidentiality of personal financial information is of utmost concern to this population. Virtually all those surveyed believe that any personal information given to a business during a financial transaction remains the property of the consumer. They express resounding opposition to unrestricted sharing of personal financial information among businesses.”
I confess never having made a purchase online myself. However, my reasons for not buying over the Web do not spring from fear of credit card theft but rather from my pleasure in dealing face to face with familiar local merchants. This holds true especially of the independent bookstore where I often buy books from people whom I know and want to prosper.
Others object to what they consider an overload of information. A woman whom I ran into while writing this told me that she disapproves of a system that releases so much data, with its likelihood of violating the privacy of individuals. She has absolutely no interest in getting mixed up with devices that go against her values.
I feel some sympathy for the problems older people have with the Internet. Yes, computers remain too complicated and expensive. They should be easier to use, like the television set. And they do have the potential for exposing elders to fraud and other abuse.
However I do not agree that those who eschew communication by computer aren’t missing anything. Some of the benefits are summarized in a new research report made available to me by Roger Morrell of GeroTech, a Washington area company: “older adults can use computers to improve their work productivity, entertain themselves, enhance education and daily functioning, and maintain independence.”
I will never forget the day in 1984 when my television screen first flickered with a program imported from my small Commodore 64 computer. I recognized that moment as historic in my life because it gave me access to a newly invented tool of huge potential, a potential that continues to give me solid benefits.
The Internet remains a tool that can hold solid value for many more elders than are currently using it. If only for giving us access to email, getting online can enrich our lives and help overcome the isolation that our society visits on so many of its older members.
Richard Griffin
In 1984, the U.S. Bureau of Census documented that only one percent of older adults (65+) reported using a computer anywhere. By 1997, 10% of older adults reported that they were using computers and 7% of them stated that they were online.
This column has come to you on the electronic wings of email. It does each week, much to my own continuing amazement. Only once have I ever visited the Community News Company office, the organization that publishes this paper. Instead, I send my words to CNC through the Internet, one of the great inventions of the twentieth century. From the central office, local editors then download the column for insertion into publications like this one.
This fall will mark the thirty-second birthday of the Internet, though people differ on whether September or October 1969 deserves to be called the founding month. The impulse that led to this invention came from the Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union and was intended to improve the American military’s use of computer technology. In time, university-based researchers took the lead and collaborated to link computer resources around the country.
According to the latest figures, 58 percent of Americans now have access to the Internet in their homes, up from only 39 percent in 1999. And, of course, many of us use the Internet in our workplaces.
The World Wide Web, a child of the Internet, forms part of this explosion in communications that has further extended our electronic reach. The Web enables users to draw on a huge reservoir of information of all sorts available across the globe.
It was developed, starting in 1989, by a British computer whiz named Tim Berners-Lee who is currently based at M.I.T. Incidentally, I once heard him lecture and on that occasion walked away wondering how a man of such genius could be such a dull speaker.
Who among us, now of advanced years, would ever have predicted the birth of this system that has so revolutionized the lives of Americans? It surely deserves to rank among the greatest inventions of our lifetime.
I will never forget the day in 1984 when my television screen first flickered with a program imported from my small Commodore 64 computer. I recognized that moment as historic in my life because it gave me access to a newly invented tool of huge potential.
The Commodore seems primitive now in the light of high-powered Macs and PCs that have come into my possession since then but it ushered in the beginning of a previously unimaginable transformation in work and social life.
Though Internet use has become routine for me as for many other older people, I hope never to lose a sense of wonder about it all. There is something spiritual about this device that relies on electronic impulses that fly through the air and through wires. (If this sounds naïve, it testifies to my far-reaching ignorance of science and technology.)
You cannot see the flight but can only admire the almost instantaneous arrival of your messages sometimes over a distance of thousands of miles. The telephone has accustomed us to contacts of this sort but email has extended the ways in which we can share ourselves with others.
Now, as with so many people older and younger, Internet use has become part of my daily life. In addition to email, I also make extensive forays into the Web as a convenient way of researching the subjects of columns. Sometimes I also follow up news items published in newspapers and occasionally I look for sports information.
However, I confess never having made a purchase online. A recent study sponsored by AARP suggests that in this respect I am typical of older users. We elders are supposedly afraid of how our credit card numbers can be stolen or, less drastically, about online merchants who might give financial information about us to other companies.
On the basis of a recent study, AARP worries about us older users fearing that we are generally less proficient and less confident than those who are younger, more affluent, and more educated. We remain “at risk in an increasingly technology-driven commercial environment.”
I have other reasons for not buying online, especially my desire to deal face to face with familiar local merchants. This is especially true of the independent bookstore where I often buy books from people that I know and want to prosper.
Those older people who use the Internet only for email have discovered a precious resource. Even though they may never take advantage of the information, games, chat rooms, and other services available on the net, they have made themselves rich in establishing contact with family members, friends, and others through the exchange of messages across the airwaves.
I remember talking with a boy from an immigrant family living in Boston. When I asked him about email, he told me that his grandmother sends him frequent messages. The grandmother, it turned out, lives in Saudi Arabia and corresponds with her grandson, presumably in Arabic.
I like to think of this enterprising woman as representative of millions of us who have entered bravely into the new world of far-flung communication.
Richard Griffin