Can someone in their 50s exist with no internet?

He's doing what's right for him and that's all that matters.
At least he won't get scammed or ripped off.

He's setting himself up for a lot of problems, or at least inconvenience, in his older age.

Bear in mind that landlines are being phased out so people are increasingly needing Internet access to make those phone calls.

If you have any kind of bank account or phone line no, you need to be able to contact the provider if there is no mobile or landline available. Most people don't have landlines these days but if your mobile goes down you won't be able to find contact details for anything...not as if we have the Yellow Pages for O2 or hospitals or dentists or anything any more.

To be honest our reliance on the internet scares me. Especially considering our power comes from Russia via Chinese infrastructure.

I know a few older people who do not have smart phones & do not use the Internet
No email
No WhatsApp
No Internet browsing

Their choices are limited & they probably miss out on better deals

Their communication is limited to face to face, phone calls or letters

They have to ask other people for help

However, they still manage , so far

Many towns no longer have any banks. Post offices are closing so they're no substitute for the stuff you can't do via an atm. Even if you have a bank in town, if you work 9-5 you can't get to it.

Town centres are dwindling and many out of town shopping centres are poorly served by public transport so you would have to be more reliant on a car.

And there are no medals being dished out for making life harder.

I agree with this. If I could, I'd choose for smart phones to not exist.

I've contemplated getting rid of mine, but compromised by setting up rigid limitations using Lock Me Out app. It's made me halve my phone usage and read two books since 1st Jan instead of doom scrolling.

Have you got a smart phone?

I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to.
people in their 50s are still working, and although we grew up without it, it’s been a fact of life for 30 years.

my sister is sort off the grid, doesn’t have a smart phone, no broadband, no internet banking etc. However she does go round to my parents house to check her emails and use their PC and if she wants something online will ask me or them to buy it for her.

i don’t think it’s possible to be completely off line.

I’ve thought about this a lot. I grew up without it and started using internet at about 18. Quite an early adopter. I read a lot as a child.
Yes I’m posting on here, but I increasingly think life would be much better if the internet had never been invented, or at least mobile internet. I wouldn’t want to be without mobile phones, they are very useful, but I think when smart phones came in it ruined everything.
The more you need an app to go everything the more reliant we become on it. It’s a viscous circle.
I never shop online if I can help it, as I hate online shopping, but the physical shops are closing, or have little stock so sometimes I’m forced to.
The GP surgery has gone from being able to call and make an appointment to trying to get everyone to do it on an app. You used to be able to walk into a bank to arrange a mortgage, now most of the branches are closing, same with Post Offices.
Bit by bit we become slaves to our phones. My teens can’t be bored, and if they feel the slightest bit awkward in any situation they take out their phones.
They find it hard to speak to people in shops or ask directions because they do everything on their phones.
People are losing the knowledge and ability to buy a train ticket from a station, use a map, look something up in a library. I wandered London with an A- Z when I lived there, getting lost, exploring. Now I’d just use a map app. I travelled the world not knowing what I’d find. Now I can see anywhere on Google earth.
Maybe I’d be happier if we could rewind to the days of brick phones, and maybe a clunky desktop computer for going online?
I think it’s the constant connection and total reliance on smart phones that worries me.
We went and stayed in a caravan last year that had no 4g signal. It was lovely. I felt calmer and much more relaxed.

And Yellow Pages no longer exists. I don't know how you find companies now without the internet.

And my 86 year old mother practically lives online. And her husband, 88, has taught himself how to fix/programme computers.

I don't think it's a good idea for someone in their 50s, no. Things move very quickly and I don't think you would want to get left behind.

I don't use Snapchat, Tik-Tok or any of the AI packages but I think I probably should do. My parents retired in the early 90s without using computers in their workplace and never got to grips with it all in their retirement. I think they missed out and I don't want that to be me, being completely lost in 5 years time because I haven't bothered to get to grips with newer things.

I guess if you are saying you would still have your phone with data so it would just be things like smart TV you would miss out on, or you would use your phone data for iPad then you would probably be OK.

My folks (70s) do have internet but won’t pay for anything online 😔 they miss out on a lot of things that would benefit them and they spend a lot of time making phone calls

I think I could probably manage entertainment without the internet, as you say normal Telly, radio and reading would be fine, although any kind of outing, theatre visit or even children's clubs are booked online.

Communication, as a family we use WhatsApp to video call more distant relatives, I suppose you would get back into the habit of actually talking on the phone.

Health, everything from our GP is through an online form.

Banking, local branches have been closed so it's through an app.

Paying bills, everything from utilities to council tax is online.

Even registering to vote is an online form.

I suppose you could visit the library ,or an internet cafe (do they even exist anymore?) and make use of the computers but their opening hours are being drastically cut, so,
No, I don't think I could manage without internet access at home.

I would like to be without the Internet but it is almost impossible to live without it (buying cars, houses, children/school, clubs).

Anyone with half of grain of common sense can very easily avoid those things.

We're more connected than ever, yet loneliness and mental health are worse than ever. I wonder if the loss of incidental face to face interactions and the need to connect in person for anything is partly responsible?

I remember trying to read a train timetable, find the train tickets I wanted, book said train tickets, and locate the correct platform, in Budapest, without speaking Hungarian. It was a terrifying nightmare. But now I can put a search into Google, get directed to a website, translate the content to English, and immediately find exactly what I’m looking for and pay for it all in advance, and then get to-the-minute in-app updates about delays and which platform to go to.

He may be be able to get by now, but things are only going to become more automated and "in person" services are dwindling more and more.

Someone in their mid 50's conceivably has several decades more of life. Does anybody really think you're going to be calling a customer service line or actually walking into a brick and mortar bank for routine transactions 20 years from now? I doubt it.

You not heard of phone scams?

Getting rid of the Internet is like getting rid of the fridge, you could do it but why make your life more difficult then it needs to be

The internet is definitely a mixed thing. I enjoy the conveniences but do wonder if it was better to give those up for the simpler life. I know one thing though - I'm glad I got to have my childhood without the internet.

Yes, of course you could.

Don't worry for them. They are the sensible ones. At least they won't be scammed online, get into pointless arguments with strangers, be hacked and all the other things being online brings on.