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.

@taxguru

Great post, so agree. Take banks closing branches.... I know it won't be a popular opinion, but it certainly didn't bother me. (I know it does for some because they don't use technology). For me it was an 18 mile round trip to go to my nearest branch to pay a cheque in. Now I just scan it on the app... bingo. How much easier is that?!

And as far as updating TVs etc... if my DCs said... Mum, your telly is ancient, you would find it much better if you updated it, or whatever, I would listen to them!

I agree. People talk about the elderly being incapable of using tech for banking/bill paying etc., but a lot of the elderly are incapable of handling their own finances at all, in whatever form. My MIL lost the ability a few years ago. She'd previously happily paid bills by cheque in the post or by cheque over the bank/PO counter, but within a short space of time, lost the ability to understand a bill, kept forgetting she had to pay them, lost the ability to actually write a cheque, etc. She wanted us to take over her "paperwork", but instead we set her up with an app and set up direct debits for all her bills - she never grasped how any of it worked but at least it was simple and automatic.

Around the same time, she lost the ability to understand the value of cash - she started "losing" a lot of money, and we found out that she was handing over large bank notes to buy small things thinking that coins must be worth more than paper, so she was squirrelling away the coins and being flippant about handing over cash - most shops were honest to tell her and give her the right change, but some obviously took advantage of her confusion and handed back a few coins making her think she had lots of change back, when in fact she should have had some notes in change too! We had to limit the amount of cash she had in her purse so that she was less likely to lose it or get ripped off.

Cash really isn't the magic bullet that some people think it is. In lots of circumstances, doing things online is actually better and safer for the vulnerable.

Yes I agree. We had it with my Mum's TV. She was using an old one with a digital freeview style box, that was hard for her to program to record and playback etc. She'd refuse to change it as she was finding it hard enough to cope with it as it was, separate remote for the TV and the "box", etc.

We had her to our house and showed her our Sky system and how easy it was to bring up the planner, how easy to set series link to record, how easy to watch back recordings, etc. She was very reluctant, but we basically forced it on her by promising her it as a birthday present (first year's subscription). She absolutely loved it once it was installed and she quickly learned how easy it was to use. Far easier for her than her old system! She never stopped thanking us for it for the subsequent years.

Your MIL sounds like someone with a severe cognitive decline, poor woman, and no amount of technology or access to paper-based or cash-based systems is going to enable her to manage her own finances. She's lucky to have you helping her out.

I agree on the car thing. We’ve only just replaced our very old car with a 2023 car, I hate it. I’m trying to drive and it pulls me to the side, apparently it’s a good thing and keeps me in the lane, errm no all the roads where I live are overflowing with cars parked on the side I literally have to zig zag in and out because 2 lanes become one. It’s the same on all the rural roads around here.

then there are all the touch screen stuff, I just want to turn the fucking heating down with a knob I can reach while driving, not have to mess around with touch screens. And the sensors, scared the shit out of me the first time someone stopped up my arse at the traffic lights, even worse when a car stops too close at the side of me.

I just keep thinking of war of the worlds with Tom cruise and how non of the electric cars worked when the aliens invaded 😂

My aunt was very proud of having nothing to do with computers or mobile . Lucky for her whenever she needed help a family member was around! My mum had no interest in either mobiles or computers. I don't think Dad had a mobile but he did have a computer. It was very helpful for his 'family tree' stuff. He was in contact with women all over America that wanted him to search for their English relatives. I used to tease him about his 'other women'.

I think that's a bit disingenuous. In the early 80s we had one computer in the school that was massive and moved around between each classroom so each class could take turns at some random educational game. They weren't used otherwise.

In secondary in the mid to late 80s we had a computer room but it was only really used by people doing "computer studies".

When I was at uni in the early 90s there was no internet in use and we used books and microfiche for research. We did have access to computers for basic word processing.

When I started work in the 90s, the computers then were very basic compared to what we have now. There was no windows at my first two jobs, for example, and email wasn't made available at my workplace to the rank and file until the late 90s/early noughties (and we were initially restricted to internal email only). By this time, those now 90 would have been nearly 70 and likely retired or nearing retirement.

It also depends what jobs you have done. My mum is in her 70s and in later life has not done a job where she has done a lot of computer work so isn't as au fair as someone that, for example, worked in an office. Similarly with DH's parents. His mum never worked so really struggled with technology. His dad is a little more confident but retired in the.early noughties so hasn't kept up with it.

It's also reinvent to mention that the progression in technology in our lifetime has been incredibly rapid. In the space of 30 years we've gone from no internet (obviously it was invented before then but it wasn't widely used) and most people not even having a computer at home, to smartphones and internet being used for everything. If you haven't been able to keep up with the change M, like any rapid change it's very easy to be left behind.

I'm in my 50s I've grown up with this technology, with the start of the rapid charges being when I was in my 20s and 30s and working. It was therefore easy for me to keep up with and I was at an age when I embraced it (or walked blindly into it depending on what we are talking about!!!!). Now being in my 50s I can see why if this was all just starting now I might not be able, or willing, or have the opportunity to keep up.

Short-term convenience comes at a price. Perhaps people are not sufficiently aware of the benefits of paper records for some things - and organisations don't want to remind them because it costs them money to send paper out.

You really don't want to rely on just online information for important things that you need to keep track of rarely and over a long time. Finding online access when you need it can be very difficult. Pensions, investments, P60s... good to have those on paper.

Yes over the years I got sent far too much paper, and yes I've got rid of most of it, and yes it was a pain and bad for the environment and expensive for the companies sending it out... but apps don't cut it for the important things that I rarely need to use or even look at.

For example I don't want to be carrying all my savings accounts about with me all the time on an app (or several apps!) that I need at most a couple of times a year. A piece of paper is much easier to remember and file and manage than an electronic message that appears at an inconvenient time and then vanishes into the pile of notifications or a remote corner of an app I never use and would have to spend a lot of time figuring out how it works again.

What really pissed me off was when a certain building society FINALLY figured out how to create a beautifully designed printout that clearly summarised ALL my different savings accounts on a SINGLE sheet of paper that they sent ONCE a year. Everything in one place! No wasted paper! No overstuffed filing cabinet! I was so pleased... and a year later they abolished paper statements.

Was this at Newcastle University? I believe they were first.

Fond memories of going with my Granny to use the ATM when I was about 8 years old in 1981, there was only 1 in town and she had a card before my parents did! She was all over it but was happy to let me have a go. It had a viewfinder slot that you peered into, so nobody else could see the screen.

My mother is in her 70s and spends hours watching tiktok which I wish she wouldn't I'm sure its damaging her mental capacity.

My DD & SIL use Alexa to turn on and off lights.
I am quite happy using light switches.

In 30 years time I can imagine houses being built without light switches and we'll all be forced to have an alexa or similar to do something really basic. I'm not convinced that is progress.

It depends what circles you move in though, doesn’t it? I can think of dozens of people who have never used a computer or even a smartphone, right off the top of my head.

My relative is a prime example. Late 70s. She has a drug dealer’s £10 supermarket phone and it doesn’t matter how many times we explain it to her, or draw her diagrams to remind her of what button does what, she can’t send or receive text messages or listen to voicemail messages, or access her contacts. Our phone numbers are all written down and she tries them in every time she needs to call someone. She’s never used a cash point and has only had a bank account in the last couple of years. She’s never used her debit card to pay for anything. She’s just about got her head around the tv remote but only the buttons she needs to switch it on and off and get it to the channel she wants. I could keep trying to teach her, but it worries her and wears me out, so what’s the point? She’s quite happy and managing fine.

I’m not quite as extreme but I don’t bother with technology if I don’t need it. I don’t find internet banking necessary and although I have a smartphone, I only use it for texts, phone calls and the internet; I don’t have any apps. I have a personal email address but I never finished setting up my phone, so I can’t send or receive anything. I manage fine without it. Life is very easy 😊

A significant part of this will be literacy issues, it's much more common than you think.

Imagine if when the local grocer closed and the boy didn't bring your basket of veg anymore, and you had no space to grow your own, people just indulged and enabled you by collecting and dropping it off for you instead of you learning something new, like walking to the shop or whatever.

It's fine for you to inconvenience yourself. But it's not fine when it starts impacting others.

It can be annoying and I won’t be that person myself as I age, because I know how much ends up falling on the adult kids. My mother refused to learn how to text which was really frustrating as she was going deaf. My mil, the same age, embraced technology, texting, face timing etc so age was not an excuse.

If it doesn’t affect anyone else fine, but if it does then I see no reason why an older person can’t at least learn to text, they don’t even need a smartphone for that.

Mine too - I hate apps for everything.

My phone is practically full already and I have to pull out my glasses to read it. I don't want to have to install yet another app for a car park. I have 5 already on my phone.

The being proud thing i would find really irritating, like it's some kind of moral superiority, but then having no qualms about bothering someone else to do it. That not on. So basically saying It's beneath me but not beneath you!

Yes, it’s doubtless true that literacy is more important than ever with so many things being text-based now.

However a poster upthread suggested that using online services in the UK was also tricky for people who struggled with English in the sense that English is not their native language, but they are literate in their own language. I think that this is now less and less an issue because AI translation has come on in such leaps and bounds and you can Google translate an entire website very easily, not to mention that phones will enable you to have a “conversation” face to face with someone without speaking the same language.

It's only fine if people who refuse to engage with these things can manage their own affairs. If as is the OPs case tbey expect others to do it for them then no it really isn't fine.

At 90 my mum got the Internet. She doesn't use it....it's due to her telecare alarm thingy needing an Internet connection!
What has been fun for her is she has a SMART tv so now the grandchildren load films for her.
I can go and log on for work from there rather than having to get home or buy stuff for her online. So although she isn't actively using it, it benefits her in loads of ways.

My mil is 85 and has never used a computer let alone smart phone.

she never has needed too. The job she had was a caring job, dinner lady, cleaner again back then nothing was done on a computer, that was for office workers.

she is incredibly old fashioned, barely goes out due to ill health and when she does it’s accompanied by her adult children who sort everything out for her. Do I think her life would be enriched by being able to use a smartphone/computer. Yes. Do I think she should. No. It’s her life. She’s also very stubborn.

my mum who died aged 75 in 2023 and my dad on the other hand who died in 2007 embraced computers My mum used computers in her line of work anyway and my dad just loved anything new and he would have loved smartphones,
He’d have been the first downloading Spotify and doing online shopping!

it’s only last year that I got the concept of Apple Pay and not long before that contactless 🙈 my son had to set Apple Pay up for me and show me how it worked. I’m 47 😂

Oh Yes! She is dead now but liked to think of herself as a victorian grand dame. and would practically swish out of a shop door with a "good day to you"!

Actually she wouldn't bother us but we would find out stuff like when the upstairs loo flooded. She had no answer for why she hadn't rung us or the maintenance guy who had been to her house for various things.

Parking apps here have been "hacked". The nice little QR code scan at the cash machine was taped over with a fake. They fooled soooo many people into paying with that.

And the numbers of people getting scammed paying online with debit cards is huge ... but why on earth pay from an account that has your mortgage coming out. Scam might mean bouncing payments. Use a credit card for online use... not debit.

Being old sometimes just makes us cautious (especially those of us who grew up in the beginnings of this brave new world). Not everything new fangled is good, let alone better.

My parents, now c90, never used computers in their work and don't use one now. They do have a basic mobile 'phone. They rarely ask me to do anything for them digitally. I don't have internet banking but love my tablet and smartphone. I don't do parking apps either. To need several hundred pounds worth of tech to pay £2 to park is just strange!