Campaigning For Over 50's Thread, The Generational Digital Divide

“It can transform the lives of older people, providing contacts, information, entertainment and access to specialised services. It can enable radical new models of health care and support for older people living at home, effecting savings that would amply repay the costs of installing an internet connection in every house, just like electricity, gas and water. But it requires profound changes in attitude – a belief in, and a belief by, older people that they can cope.” Tom Kirkwood - “The End of Age” The Reith Lectures, Radio 4, 2001.



Today the UK is as digitally divided as ever especially among older people. The over 65 age group still has the highest level of digital exclusion. Office of National Statistics 2008: “70% of people over 65 have never used the internet.”

I would imagine that most of us who use computers did so during our working lives. To those people who have never used a computer before, the thought must be daunting!

Our local U3A runs some very well attended computer forums ranging from total beginners to folk who want to learn to do more advanced things with their PCs, such as photo editing etc. A great help for people who have never used a computer before but would like to learn about them before embarking on one of their own.

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DL - The lovable little Dragon

For years govt have tried to get people to use computers. The trouble is they haven't a clue about them. They don't understand ICT and they don't understand what real people want. What we want is a government who listens to what we need. Older people would like to use computers if there was a friendly way of going about it and an easy way to try it. I don't particularly know of many resources in towns, but I know for a fact there are none available in most rural areas, where people often retire to. Neither is there internet access in a alot of places. It is a tough one to address, and nobody in authority has got a handle on it yet. Throwing money at agencies who will address the issue is not the answer, though it may look good on paper. The agencies who have tried to help people I know have been told to shove it. The people don't want NVQs or other qualifications, they just want to know how to turn the damn thing on, find a site and turn it off again. The rest will come once they get more curious and lost the fear.

Well said and welcome to idf

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Living in Once,Englands green and pleasant land

Silverlady I have written another piece on similar lines HERE

This subject is wide, in fact so wide it is more a question of "Where do I start?"

I met a friend last night, one I hadn't seen for some months, so of course it becomes a matter of catch up. What have you been doing? where are you working now? are you still involved with the railway? do you still follow the Rovers? and so on.
I asked if he had a computer as I am now quite active in help forums and did he have any problems?
The answer I got was "What do I need a computer for? I have lived till now without one, why should I need one now?

It is more a question of perceived need to older folk, most of whom have lived a long life without seeing any need for this technology to be a part of their lives, so don't even have enough interest to look.

My friend is a year or two younger than me by the way, and not yet 60.

So it is really more a matter of resistance to change, or a resistance against learning something new, being one of the major reasons for the older generations not being computer oriented or knowledgeable.

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I have Windows, do I need curtains?

I recently visited my Aunt along with my son. She is in her late eighties, very frail and housebound. All her friends and siblings are dead and she gets very lonely. On the way home I said to my son how lucky we were to be internet savvy. Even if we finish up housebound, with all the social networking sites, we need never be lonely. Something for people who are 'getting on a bit' to think about when dismissing the internet as being not for them.

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Laptop:Vista SP3, AvastAV, CCleaner, Spybot, SpywareBlaster, Superantispyware, Malwarebytes, A-squared, Stinger, WinDef, IE8, FF3.5.5
Desktop: XP2 IE8

What does annoy me is the people who have never used computers at work but do buy one in retirement. They come into it with no knowledge about computer security whatsoever! I'm willing to bet there are some out there who know nothing and don't have an anti-virus or firewall running.

They are also the ones who put our computers at risk by passing on chain emails, jokes and the like without using the BCC function because they don't know what it is and why they should not display everyone's email addresses.

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DL - The lovable little Dragon

Worse still, most of those "jokes" have been around the internet for yonks!

I also notice that most of the people who are ignorant of the BCC facility are sending from a business address, forwarded from another business address.

And so it goes on and on. And so do the viruses and spyware!

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Setting a good example for children takes all the fun out of middle age.
-- William Feather