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.

It's like hitting your head against a brick wall, isn't it?

Not everyone is equally intelligent. Even those who are, have different areas of skill. Not everyone had the same opportunities. Not everyone had the same amount of time to learn something new or take a course. Not everyone had the money to have a computer at home, or someone patient to help them when they got stuck. Not everyone got to learn and consolidate their skills every day at work. Not everyone had had a healthy upbringing that gave them the confidence to try something new, or to stick at it when it got hard. And hundreds of other factors that prevented or helped different members of the same age cohort to manage a huge learning curve.

Yes, differences in literacy and intelligence are important. Also, older people can just be more tired. And some people don’t like learning new things. I think some people are kind of waiting for things to ‘go back to normal’ and there’s no need to engage with new things.

There is also the question of learning different technologies at different times. PIL used to live in an area with very poor broadband coverage. Therefore using the laptop to check emails was a chore and they never did much more than that. The laptop wasn’t very good either.

I realised that I got good coverage on my mobile network at their house, so I added an iPad for them to my account, allowing them to access the internet much more easily as well as using it to take photos etc. they got quite good at doing email, FaceTime, using the iplayer, etc and can check their banking apps, use a parking app (as long as it keeps them logged in) but they have very very little understanding of what is going on ‘underneath’. They couldn’t understand needing to be connected to WiFi for software updates. They don’t understand that nearly everything on their iPad and phones doesn’t physically live on a hard drive inside it. They are happy as long as technology is doing what they want it to, but the slightest problem makes them give up. Its as though they were capable of getting to a certain point but no further. I think without the iPad they would have become very disengaged and deskilled in general, so I can see how it happens.

MIL gets annoyed about passwords and believes she doesn’t have a password for Amazon - which tells you something about why Amazon is so successful.

We also found out that she was doing her online veg box order by phoning them up
every week, ‘they don’t mind and it’s much easier’. Kudos to her for finding the phone number!

Exactly this. And, for whats it's worth, I imagine there are a few things older people can do which young people wouldn't have a clue about where to start.

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.

^
😂

Probably

What does this even mean? I’ve already given my reasons why some people never used it, your comment doesn’t make any sense.

let me make it more succinct for you.

Because they didn’t want to and didn’t need to. How’s that?

I have trouble believing that they are telling the truth. I’m in my 50s. We had computers in school growing up.

I didn’t get a phone until 2005

Never occurred to me I might need on

Fear of technology, not understanding tech terms and thinking it is more complicated than it is are some of the main reasons, they don’t understand that it is actually easy

I'm not sure it is easy if you've never typed before! Pecking away letter by letter isn't easy - and added to that, there's often a problem with impaired vision. The free versions of speech-to-text are a bit shonky (I tried them all for my mum) and, anyway, talking to a machine doesn't come naturally at all. Even my Echo's quite bad at understanding natural language, and it's supposed to be the best in class.

It isn't very easy to get used to a mouse - move this thing but don't look at it, look for the little arrow moving on your screen. Touch screens are even worse: think how often you, an habitual user, open the wrong app by mistake, accidentally close a tab or navigate somewhere you didn't mean to!

The whole business of using one app/program for one thing and another for something else is far from intuitive. Then there's things like menus and bloody icons everywhere that you have to know what they're (probably) for. I've been online since 1992, have built many websites and user interfaces, and still get exasperated by tricksy navigation.

There's logging in, authentication, saving stuff and finding it again, understanding how online orders and payments work, how to check if you already paid, how to see if you ordered correctly and what to do if you didn't.

I tried building a super-simple launcher for mobiles but soon found it could not actually be both simple and reliable, due to the limitations of the apps. Last time I checked (about a year ago now), no-one had yet built one that would actually work well for a user of limited capacity. Some companies offer custom 'elderly friendly' tablets; they're crap and overpriced, with a compulsory subscription to their helpdesk service (which tells you everything about how easy they really are to use!)

Practically no websites meet accessibility standards, and they're getting worse not better. Erm ... I could go on but this is already longer than I intended 😬

Maybe they feel the benefits of not being tied to a phone are worth the downsides. People managed their lives perfectly well before smartphones. My mother is 87 and never used the internet. She has a smartphone but she can’t do more than WhatsApp really.

I first saw a computer in my secondary school in the eighties. We had one for a large school. I never got the chance to use it.
But I had to use computers in my jobs later on in the office, and attended courses such as how to use email.

From the people I know who do not use the internet the issue is:

• they did not have to use at work and now retired have seen no point in using it. The people I know who never had to use computers at work and have learned at an older age, tend to have learned so they can communicate with children or grandchildren.
• poor literacy so that smartphones and computers are very difficult to use
• issues with fine motor skills which means they do not have the manual dexterity required

I agree about poor accessibility standards. Loads of websites are not accessible using screen readers. Loads of pages do not even scale to size if you increase the font size. The internet is not designed for the common issues that come with older age

Thanks for your post, @Garlicnorth - very good! It will be easier to learn WhatsApp if you previously learned how to send an SMS. It might be easier to learn email if you previously had to type up and print out a letter in Word for your boss to sign. But if you are starting at rock bottom zero, of course it is hard and daunting.

I think some people are kind of waiting for things to ‘go back to normal’ and there’s no need to engage with new things.

this is very well put!

I do think a lot of it is whether you used one at work as then you already have the basics. Where I worked in a laboratory, computers were used a lot from when I started in 1974 with punch cards and green computer paper, those green screens, I think they were DOS through all the more modern stuff but some that worked there never used a computer at all so wouldn't have a clue.

A friend who is in her early sixties had never used a computer at work. She can text and whatsup, but is trying to learn to do other things now she is retired

So did we. 15 of them in a computer room that was permanently locked after the first batch of RM Nimbuses were smashed over the Easter holiday (and the girls' gym was torched).

I managed to get in there at lunchtime with a mate who had opted for computer science when I was 15 because he needed to do some homework - and that was the first time I'd used one since we were 11 and did the Logo programming for 4 Maths lessons, the time before that being for a few weeks in primary with the school BBC Model B computer (and my brother's Sinclair Spectrum, which I wasn't allowed to touch, but would come in from school and play Manic Miner on it before he finished work. He did let me type in programs from magazines occasionally under his supervision).

Next time I saw - not use, saw - a computer was when I got myself a boyfriend who had an Atari ST he used to play games (and a brother with an Amiga). So I watched Sim City and Lemmings being played.

I'm now employed to work with data and IT, but never had any training, I just blagged my way into jobs and worked out how to use stuff when I got there - at that time, the admin and secretarial roles in the NHS I did still didn't allow anyone lower than management to access the internet - and eventually, sometime around 2003, my ex bought a computer. I bought my first one in 2006 with a grant, my first smartphone in 2011.

In short, it was a combination of random circumstances, mostly around me looking out for chances to make some money or getting to know people, that led to me knowing how to use the internet. Had I got jobs elsewhere, dated different people, not had access to a grant for a laptop, it would have been totally different.

I’m 51. We had computers at school.

6 computers in the computer room for nearly 2000 pupils. Only the GCSE computer studies students were allowed to use them.

computer studies was not popular at GCSE as most of the academic kids stuck to the traditional subjects- it was only the kids aiming for typing and admin careers took it.

I used a word processor at uni, but didn’t touch my first computer until my final year project in 1991 when I was 21. I was hooked and as soon as I could afford it I bought my own, which meant I could experiment with set ups and freeware.

I am a little bit older at 62. We had one computer in school in the maths department that was only allowed to be used by those studying advanced maths. At university there was a computer block that only people studying computer science were allowed to access. The rest of us handwrote essays.
At my first office job we wrote letters and gave them to the secretary to type up on her computer. It wasn't until the nineties I first used a computer at work. But many of my friends who did practical work never used a computer at work.

To me, in my 50‘s that’s more of a faff. I’ve not been sent a cheque book for years by the bank, I then have to find an envelope and a stamp (well suppose you’d do recorded) and go and queue in our very very busy post office. The cheque can then get lost en route or when it gets there.

I just remembered I had to hand write my essays for uni as we didn't have PCs I graduated in 1991. I had my first internet access at work around 1997 as I was working in a uni, so things were changing by then but computers were still expensive. I bought my first computer around then for over 1300 quid. It came with dozens of discs, flight simulator, Encarta etc. I think people who have always had computers, smartphones etc can't realise just how it was back then, it was a really seismic change and I totally understand why some people didn't embrace it all. Not everyone had the opportunity, interest, or cash to join the new technical revolution, they shouldn't be berated for that.

I’m 54.

Ok, we had pcs at secondary school- I think there was a suite of 10 and the entire school took turns to go in and sit, 3 per computer, and do things like load a programme using a cassette player. I can’t remember it actually doing anything. I remember ’pong’. We had a Banda machine for copies, so hand written.

By the time I was at uni they had begun to be useful for writing essays. Most people didn’t have access to one and so essays were planned and written longhand. We used carbon paper for copies.

By the time I was a teacher, primary schools had one per classroom. The students took turns throughout the term to write a programme that moved a turtle around, then we gathered in the hall and watched the turtle.
The photocopier arrived but was expensive so limited. Planning was still done by hand.

If you weren’t academic and didn’t go to uni or do an office job, you won’t have been expected to use one for word processing. You will have successfully managed all areas of your life without using one. You may not have wanted to spend over £1000- much more back then- for accessing internet or writing letters when you’d never needed one before. We had one, but DH was a programmer and I was a teacher. (We were very late adopters of the mobile, though. I only kept a brick phone in the car for emergencies. DH only started using a smartphone this year 🤦‍♀️ despite being surgically attached to his star trek style PC set up.)

Yes, you’ll perhaps have used dedicated systems at work in retail, but they are nothing like PCs.

I have friends my age- and younger- who have never meaningfully used anything other than a phone. Being one of three sat at a school pc to programme a turtle really isn’t meaningful.

I was in a classroom yesterday (as a supply teacher) and the children had wet lunchtime and the lunchtime supervisor came in with them and asked me to put 'something on the board' because she hadn't a clue how to work computers. She looked about 55. Then at the end she couldn't stop iplayer, she had to get a five year old to do it,

Absolutely. There are some really sneery comments on this thread. I know quite a few people who don’t have great computer skills. They can work the internet but beyond that, not a lot. If you haven’t had to use it for work and have a full life, perhaps that’s a good thing! Being glued to tik tok and you tube aren’t the be all and end all .

Playing ‘Cat and Mouse’ on a BBC computer for ten minutes, twice at the age of 7 doesn’t equal computer literacy. I’m 50, That was the only time I touched a computer in Primary school.

In secondary we used a computer maybe two or three times in 2nd and 3rd year. The lesson was sheets of paper with characters on that we had to enter. Nobody knew why, or what the end result was because nobody ever finished it. A complete waste of time and taught us nothing about computers.