40% of over 75s do not use the internet

[antelopevalley]

I have just read this statistic in a report and it has left me wondering about the other 60%. Life will become increasingly difficult for them. And if they are not using it now, they are unlikely to be using it in a few years time.

Banks, services, shops push customer service online because they want to save money not because they want to help anyone elderly. Then society as a whole helps that by blaming anyone older who’s not computer savvy for not being able to access the services they need rather than insisting that core services still have a duty to be contactable by phone or by letter.

Yes, exactly. My mother is in her 90s, still perfectly capable of managing her affairs, but increasingly frustrated by local council, utilities, etc insisting on everything being done online, to the point where in some cases you can't even speak to someone on the phone.

She does have a small tablet which I bought her and she can Google things she's interested in, but she can't read very small text and her hands get stiff and she can't always easily use a touchscreen, and she doesn't want to run her life online, and why should she have to?

I'm much younger, of course, and I do use the internet a lot, but I'm finding it an inconvenience that rail and bus companies, for example, no longer produce paper timetables.

Plus the issue of loneliness - if you shop online, do all your banking online, you do miss out on face to face, personal contact. And getting out to the shops is better for keeping mobile than sitting at home on a computer.

@ChilleyCheesecake The problem is services are increasingly going online. If you do not have access to the internet, life is going to get more and more difficult.
I am looking at issues around retirees moving to mainly rural areas. Not being able to access online services makes life difficult - along with many other issues.
Seriously do not retire to a very rural area unless you already have family there who can help when you need it. There are so many issues.

Plus ca change

I can remember when there were similar stories about telephones, as companies started switching to taking calls rather than written correspondence. (I went to school with a couple of kids from families who refused to have a phone at all).

Not really sure what anyone is supposed to do about it though.

What services are going online? 999? What are these 'so many issues?'.
Many, if not all, places you can write or call still. Or just come in person. I'd assume if moving rurally they'd have access to a car. The internet doesn't transport people.
Businesses that choose to withdraw those are loosing custom. It seems to me you feel everything ought to be online and everyone should just start using it or they can't survive. Which business do you own to profit from this notion?
People can survive and be quite happy without the internet. Perhaps happier.

What services are going online?

A better question might be what services aren't ?

999?

May as well be.

Many, if not all, places you can write

BTDTGTTS - no reply even with recorded delivery

or call still.

I've waited up to 45 minutes on a call. Before it was dropped at 6pm

Or just come in person.

There's a Rhod Gilbert routine about Fruit Towers .....

40% of over 75yos isn't the same thing as 40% of 75yos.

How many over 75s are over 85, for example?

Agree that this is looks to become a major issue for some - my parents (77 and 82) are increasingly locked out of a range of services because they are incapable of accessing the technology that’s now required to access them. Things like hospital appointments, banking, retail customer services and utilities are becoming more and more remote and inaccessible without significant help from myself or DP (who works in IT). Even tiny everyday things like paying for parking are increasingly going online, and they just can’t/won’t do it.

For them it’s not solely an age issue though - it’s partly a stubborn refusal to engage with any tech stuff, and partly that their poor/low level of education (both left school at 14/15 with no qualifications) means they lack the mental agility to adapt to the changes.

I think it is a massive problem. Some older people have deteriorating vision and can barely see a phone screen, others have poor hearing for instructions, or worry (rightly) about security online. If they have difficulty there is nobody to talk them through it, because all phone lines basically advise you to do it online.

Any time someone acknowledges this on Mumsnet there is a barrage of angry responses saying "Nonsense. I'm 78 and I just hacked into the pentagon. Elderly people are not incompetent and should be able to do everything online". But many just can't do it, and this is hidden because their children or grandchildren are helping them through the barriers.

@SerendipityJane But using the telephone is not difficult. Especially when first introduced and you lifted the phone and asked an operator to connect you. The skill set needed was basic in the extreme.

@ChilleyCheesecake Getting through to services by phone is a major trial. I know as I have had to contact a few different services recently about something that can not be sorted online. Major telephone trees and then very long waits. Anyone who has to do that regularly must spend ages on the phone.
And I agree even parking is online now.

The idea that if someone can google something online they can access services online is naive. Even our local police station has closed down. The main council office for the public was closed down a few years ago. I don't know where you would go if you had to talk to someone rather than deal with issues online. I am fine with IT and have dealt with the council with a few things online - parking permit renewal, those type of things. But I wonder what people do who can not go online. Maybe as someone said they constantly ask younger relatives to do it for them.

I'm not sure why people are arguing so much with the OP. The basic point is that there is a societal problem in that more and more services have to be accessed online while lots of people are not able to use the technology.

Under one of the recent disability laws, organisations are supposed to offer services in different ways so that people with disabilities and different needs can access services in the way that works best for them.

In practice you find yourself hanging on a phone listening to a message telling you that you might be better off using their website.

increasingly frustrated by local council, utilities, etc insisting on everything being done online

Yes, things that used to be simple (like taking a broken table to the dump) now have to be booked online. And you can't book it without setting up a whole account on the council site. But then it turns out you already have an account that you are locked out of. So you have to retrieve that account...but the code to retrieve it is sent to an old phone. No option to call someone and resolve it. My mum gets worn down by things like this, and it makes me angry.

@Carrotmum , my mum is 88 and lost ten friends and two siblings in the last five years thanks to various ailments and old age. Covid resulted in complete isolation for her because of lockdowns.

She had the TV and nothing else for company forbthe duration of the lock downs in Ireland because she has refused to learn to use a smartphone. She could have been WhatsApping her siblings, me and Dsis, her grandchildren, nieces and nephews, but no.

About a year ago she complained to me that nobody ever posts photos to her any more. I told her that people don't get photos developed much these days and that they send them to friends and family on their phones. Cue astonishment, but we've been telling her for years that this was possible.

In her younger days she refused to get a microwave but dad went out and bought one regardless, and still won't hear of a small dishwasher, or using the thermostat for her heating. Her happy place is 1958.

My parents are around the same age and have been like this forever. They lost their confidence round about the era of satellite TV and dial-up internet and haven't really caught up.

They are great at some things: my dad loves youtube and ebay, and my mum like Facebook but there are some odd things such as replying to emails or downloading E-tickets that they just will not entertain at all. They nearly cancelled their holiday because of the whole covid pass thing.

It’s v variable even now, and as each new cohort reaches 75, more and more of them will be internet savvy.
My PILs ran a translation business from home until FIL was 90. They did the whole thing online, as their publisher was in Holland. MIL had been a university secretary, before retiring to set up the business, and was a very early adopter of IT skills. They were much more skilled than me, and I was 30 years younger!

@Babdoc perhaps, but the technology needs to catch up. Because it is not very accessible to older people with arthritic hands, poor eyesight or cognitive decline.

Services going increasingly online makes it possible for many of the people providing the services to work from home. There's a balancing of needs (and also costs vs needs) going on here.

Many (not all but many) older people have someone in their lives who can help them deal with the online world. I have researched all sorts of stuff for my mum - painters, gardening services, plumbers, electricians, what the neighbour's house is selling for and what its like inside, etc, and I live on another continent. Dsis does all the admin associated with TV packages, phone packages, utility issues, car tax, car repair, MOT stuff. Plus she gets all the calls when mum can't figure out what button she pressed on the remote and why she can't get her programme back, why her smoke alarm won't stop beeping, etc.

When you get older you often find yourself needing help in more than just one aspect of your life. Online services are no different from a host of other services.

antelopevalley, quite a few elderly people have an Alexa, as they find voice activation solves the problem of poor eyesight or arthritic fingers.
However, I imagine severely and multiply disabled elderly people are more likely to be in a care home than trying to manage internet access alone.

Pisses me off and I'm in my 40s 😂
Some things really do feel like they've been made harder purely for shits and giggles (I drive off to the neighbouring LA to swerve that palaver)

I've been out of the workplace for several years as services have become more cloud and subscription based. Gone are the days of my 20s and buying a new computer and the CD roms to put the software on. Clearly by posting on MN, I am still in the technological world, but the goalposts change, I'm still of an age where skills are well embedded and I can catch up. It's a mistake to think that increasing generational prior experience will solve the problem. It will improve, but age and associated conditions undermine people's ability to keep updating their skills, and technological ability will decline through 70s, 80s & 90s albeit from a better starting point (at a cohort level)

TBH teaching in the 2010s, it's pretty amazing how dire some pupils' computing skills were. If they've gone into low tech, manual occupations, they'll go through life with a pretty low skills base.

@Babdoc I am in Scotland. Alexas, or most voice recognition systems do not work for nearly everyone with a Scottish accent.
And of course, people with these issues are not in a home! Arthritis and poor eyesight are very common as you get older as is some cognitive decline. My brother who is 59 already has some arthritis in his fingers and my eyesight is shit - I already use large text online and am only in my early fifties.
Some cognitive decline is very common after strokes, heart attacks, and some cancer treatments. Most people will be living at home, many without carers.

This is what I mean, it feels like the tech industry has not got to grips with the needs of older people. My parents had a telephone for elderly people with large push buttons, an answerphone and a large button you pushed to play back messages. It was physically and cognitively very easy to use and had obviously been designed with knowledge of older people's needs. Even my father who had cognitive decline could use it easily. The same needs to happen for IT.

@math Sadly that is not true. There are a lot of very isolated elderly people who only get help they pay for.
And why should we have a world where many older and disabled people can only cope with it if someone else does tasks they could do themselves if services were set up differently?
Nobody is saying most services should not be provided online. But there has to be a proper alternative for those who can't use those.
Disability access to services is getting worse.

Access to many services is worse and the forced shift to online is one of the reasons why. As pp’s say, the push is to save money on services and allow the rich to grow richer. This is not a country that cares much about real inclusion rather than politically-correct box-ticking inclusion any more, and the idea of services being built against needs of people has vanished.

It all makes me wonder regularly just how on Earth people managed to survive before Web 2.0, and how on Earth it was all afforded. Somehow it was, and most people were better off too.

I think it will change as people who were already tech savvy will carry on , but many older people do have some cognative decline and , so I don't think online should be the only way .

But using the telephone is not difficult. Especially when first introduced and you lifted the phone and asked an operator to connect you. The skill set needed was basic in the extreme.

But that wasn't the reason I recall [some] people wouldn't use it. The main one was "why should I have to pay to speak to <insert whoever> ?". And there was a time when telephones were considered a bit "posh" because of the cost. (And the waiting time).

And in general, somehow, the problem of people not using the phone slowly seemed to fade away. Not sure what happened there ....

@SerendipityJane You are talking about some people being resistant to using anything new. That is not what we are mostly talking about. There are very practical barriers.

Not yet it isn't. I'm 66 next month and will be getting my pension from September. It doesn't reach 68 for another 12 years, for those born on or after 6th April 1978