Why have some older people not adopted Internet?

[SparklyNewMe]

My parents have embraced it naturally somehow, and DM is very active on SM.
PIL have not - similar ages but always scoffed at it as if it was devil’s work. No smartphones. Both were switched on and active in olde age. MIL is on her own now, dependent on DH and BIL for all admin, and simpler things she deals with on her own like finding opening times are harder. But it was 100% choice, not inability, to adopt it, as MIL went to college in her 60s to learn Microsoft Office and has been using Word and Excel for her hobby. But email or internet - dismissed completely.

@GasPanic exactly. Basically the main thing my mum does is watch TV, but she won’t get a big new one, or get the streaming services (even free ones like iplayer) because it would be change. I bought her a kindle years ago and she doesn’t use it though reading is another hobby. Etc etc.

No.
People learn to drive when they are in their teens or 20s. That knowledge becomes inbuilt through practice over time.

That is nothing like learning how to use a random app in your 70s or 80s. Stupid icons / graphics that aren't instinctive (but that would be for someone in their 30s), passwords to remember, terminology you don't understand etc etc.

Learning new stuff when older is hard. With tech if you got left behind for whatever reason it is really hard to catch up.

Have you seen a modern car where almost everything is operated via the tablet? It's all transferrable skills, i.e. touchscreens to work through menu options. That's the modern version of a mouse on a PC/laptop, i.e. point and click. Which is in itself the "modern" version of the old dos computers when you pressed keys to navigate through menu options. That's what people mean about the progression from one form of tech, i.e. PC (or games console of the 70s) through the windows/mouse computers, through to tablets, along the way there having been hole in the wall cash dispensers, text phones, smart phones, etc. So much of it "builds" on previous tech and the user's experience of navigating around. The sooner people get on board, the better they'll cope with the next generation of tech, going cashless, bank branches closing, shops closing, etc. Refusing to move with the times will only end up with them suffering, not the bank, not the council car park, not the NHS, not the online shops. As I've said upthread, I have sympathy for some of the really old who never got the option/opportunity to use tech when they were younger, but those of relatively recent retirement age (and younger) have only themselves to blame if they've not bothered to move with the times. It's all been blindingly obvious that we're moving into a "tech" remote World, and has been for 20-30 years. When the current generation of 80-90 year olds have passed, literally everyone will be expected to use tech, and organisations/firms won't be making any provision at all for "face to face, nor telephone support" so anyone younger who is able to practice and get used to tech and the internet really needs to make the effort now, or they really will be isolated and excluded in 10-20 years' time.

Last time I had to use a parking app I managed to lose my reading glasses case.

@ErrolTheDragon well hopefully you don't read and drive 😂
(except road signs obviously)

I'm old, and I would absolutely hate for my DCs in their 30s have to do my life admin for me. They have their own lives to lead, I will not be a burden on them. I want to be self sufficient for as long as I can.
I've been hours this morning sorting something out to do with changing two people on a policy... it involved wifi calls, documents, scanning and printing a doc, whatsapps, an e-signature and more.
I cannot imagine ringing a DC and getting them to sort all of that.

As I said before... there is a big different between can't and won't

@taxguru my mum’s car was about 10 years old when she gave it to me - trust me, it was very low on tech, doesn’t even have parking sensors. If she had wanted a “new” one, she would have bought second hand and old enough to avoid any tablet style interactions

I don’t agree with her, but it’s what would have happened!

Indeed no, and I don't need glasses to drive. But if a parking app has decided to log me out or I've not updated the CC on it etc, then standing on a street juggling reading glasses, phone and card does seem like a hell of a lot more bother than the alternatives.

I’m not sure that’s relevant , I’m terminally attached to my iPad and phone but I’d rather have a basic car , the less tech the better . I am quite capable of driving myself I don’t need a car that thinks it knows best or tries to help .

Ha - I hear you on the not knowing best (DBro’s car is very patronising 😀)

Nail on the head. Your TV example is spot on. People just don't appreciate the benefits of modern tech until they experience it themselves. The old adage of "you don't know what you don't know" is so true.

Take banking apps, it's simplicity itself to stop a card the moment you lose it or it's stolen, you don't have to faff around trying to find the bank phone number then waiting in a queue, etc. Likewise, increasing or decreasing a credit card credit limit. People who don't use banking apps, just don't realise the benefits they're missing.

Like parking apps. With a pay and display by cash, you have to get back within the time allowed. If you need longer, you have to remember to go back, buy another ticket, etc. With an app, you buy the time you need, you get a text reminder when the time is running out, you get the option to extend the time remotely without going back to the car, etc. Again, until you do it, you don't realise what a benefit that can be.

Having your store loyalty cards on your phone means you don't have to remember to carry 5-10 of them around with you "just in case", and you don't lose out on the member's offers/discounts/points etc if you find yourself unexpectedly in such a shop. I remember a couple of years ago being severely annoyed I'd left my Tesco club card at home, and wanted to buy a box of chocolates that was half price £3.50 with a club card but £7 without. I had no choice but to pay the £7! Immediately after that, I looked into how I could put the club card on my phone!

People aren't embracing tech for the fun of it or to be seen as modern, they embrace it because it's better than the old ways. If it wasn't, people wouldn't be using it and we wouldn't be seeing the meteoric growth of apps etc.

Take bank branches. Our village lost it's bank branch in the mid 90s. The bank gave the reason as reduced footfall due to village shops banking less cash, local businesses not drawing out cash to pay their staff wages, local villagers using the branch less as they were using the hole in the wall for cash and telephone banking for paying bills, transfers etc. That was 30 years ago. The writing has been on the wall for decades.

Was it RingGo? That thing is always logging me out, grrr.

In my line of work I come across many parents in their 20s and 30s who struggle to apply for school places using the councils online system and don't interact with parent apps.

It isn't just the elderly that are luddites. Big chunks of the populating can't engage with online services.

Yes, you can do that today as there are lots of "older" cars around without modern tech. You won't be able to do that as easily in 10 years time. You'll not be able to do it at all in 20 years time when all cars (new and used) are electric!

That's what I mean about practicing today and preparing for the future, rather than being stuck in a rut and not moving forward, because whilst "today" you can do that, you won't be able to do it as time passes - and as time passes, everyone will be less able to cope with change as they age.

So people need to do it whilst they can to build up and keep their skills needed to navigate the "tech" World.

Yet those same people are almost certainly happily using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. A lot of it is people making the effort to do things they want to do, but not bother with things that maybe a little difficult or that they can't be bothered to do.

Alternative, for the people you're talking about, it's maybe that the app is crap, in which case, it will ultimately be improved to make it more user friendly and functional. That happens a lot with anything new.

How many of those would have struggled just as much with a paper system though?

I wish I could opt out. Much of it is a PITA with a million apps. Ugh.

People just don't appreciate the benefits of modern tech until they experience it themselves. The old adage of "you don't know what you don't know" is so true.

It occurs to me that the reticence on the part of some older people is that they may have dipped their toe into 'the Internet' some years ago, but too early - at the start there was very little useful content and no useful services available. Not many people had personal email. They may have thought it was newfangled rubbish because unless you were using it for work it really was rubbish.

I had email in about 1990, broadband in 1995 but was a rather late adopter of 'smartphones' because the early ones were expensive and really not very good vs a proper computer and of course there wasn't 4G.

I have a friend in her early 40s she dosnt have the internet at home or social media. Her DH won’t have it. He works in tech, he previously worked for high level secret squirrel government agencies, not uk, I don’t know the details, she only told me when he changed jobs. They bother use the internet in the office but that’s it.

A lot of tech executives don’t use their own creations. Check out The Social Dilemma, it’s a documentary where ex tech executives talk about how they don’t allow their own creations in their homes,

My dad started a computer science degree in 1966. First degree available in this country, he says.

I was the same, I have 2 cars, one is a 17 year old Citroen C3 that still has knobs for the heater, a CD player/radio, etc. I was meaning to change it every few years but when I went around the garages, the "tech" put me off as I like to actually "drive" the car, and not operate a computer to get me from A to B. Last year I took the plunge and bought a brand new car that does everything and has all kinds of options you can select through the tablet. Absolute nightmare at first, but like anything new, after I've driven it for a few weeks, I built up my knowledge of all the options, and even now, nearly two years later, still finding new things that it can do and turn off the things I don't like. I absolutely love it. Still have the old car as I can't bare to sell it, but I use it less and less these days as I really miss the features of the new one when I drive the old one. I must say that as I was driving it away from the garage for the first time, I was thinking I'd made a massive mistake, but not now. Like anything, change is hard, but the sooner you bite the bullet, the younger you are, the more time you have to practice, the outcome will be better!

Yes, but like the several parking apps, ultimately they will merge and we'll be left with just 2 or 3 rather than about 10 at the moment. That happens with most things. It's really not something that should put you off and result in you ultimately being too old/incapable of using a parking app when there are no other options.

I have a relative in his 60s who has never touched a computer and wouldn’t know where to start.

Had a manual job which didn’t need any computer use, never had kids so wasn’t exposed to computers through them.

It’s rare, but people like that still exist. He is perfectly independent and doesn’t rely on other people to do stuff for him; I can’t see that changing unless everything goes online-only.

@taxguru yes I bought new a couple of years ago and everything is switched off apart from the rear parking sensor . Still have my 2011 Kia . All I actually want in a car is air con , electric windows and a USB thing for the music .

@taxguru I had no idea I could extend payment for parking if I paid using an app.

I would say that is down to poor advertising / selling of the feature. All I have ever seen for parking apps is 'you can now pay by using the app'. If they advertised it as 'if you pay by the app then we will remind you before your payment runs out and you can extend it wherever you currently are' then the potential benefits of them would be a lot more clear.