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.

@Anonym00se yes but you didn't need to own a computer to use one.
I am almost 50 so grew up with computer technology at school/college.
(My Dad got a home PC in the late 90s but I was barely allowed to use it)
I didn't own my own personal computer or laptop until about 10 years ago. We have only had the internet at home (other than via phones) since lockdown.
But I had access to computers if I needed one.
They were available in many places.

@bobnlen The 90 year olds would have been over 70 when the first smartphones came out around 2008.

That's irrelevant. I have a relative in her 80's, who didn't use a computer, or anything similar at work, who has learnt to use a smartphone and a tablet so she can get shopping delivered and pay bills. She's also a keen user of WhatsApp and online games.

I worked at a small law firm in 1999 to about 2002. The Internet was reserved for senior partners only.

It's a funny how quickly we feel it's always been there.

I didn't get a proper smart phone until about 2012 as they were so expensive.

My parents don't have the Internet or mobile phones. They've recently got their heads around cash points for withdrawing money. They only got a telephone in 1995
And we had black and white TV far longer than anyone else had changed to colour! Recall my dad watching snooker on it!!!!
I dint like the way people are being forced to use technology eg parking machines now.
My parents can't scan a code and like to use cash. If they can't pay because it's impossible for them to do so is it fair that they get a parking ticket?! They aren't trying to dodge the fare and would willing pay with coins etc
I think the world is becoming seriously ageist and the elderly are at a disadvantage. Same goes for cost of stamps- who does that impact most????
We're lucky, we are at an age to accept change and technological advancement but not everyone can embrace it.

Why are you ignoring what pp are telling you. My DM retired 10 years ago. She worked as a cleaner and a care assistant. She never came into contact with computers in the workplace and she would have been too busy working to even think about learning how to use a computer because they weren’t needed back then. By the time she was retired, there were no free local courses, and no library. She wouldn’t have had the spare cash to buy a computer because she didn’t need one. She’d rather have bought a new washing machine or hoover that would get some use.

DM has wet macular degeneration. She can't see computer screens. She can't see the screens on self service tills in shops. I took her in Abercrombie and Fitch once, which was in semi-darkness. She told me, she couldn't see at all and went out of the shop!

MIL left school at 14 with no qualifications. She was very rigid in her thinking, which I suspect she used to cover up early dementia. She couldn't understand an ATM, an ordinary basic phone, you name it. She couldn't cope if SIL bought her a microwave, different to her previous one - SIL had to buy one, that was virutally the same as her old one. She couldn't understand that landlines don't use much electricity, and used to unplug hers, when she wasn't using it. She had a landline telephone with about 6 buttons, with the names of her nearest and dearest on - that was all she could cope with. She wouldn't have been able to cope with ringing up her GP, and having to navigate the call menus.

I don't know why some posters can't understand, that some people have their limitations and can't do the same as every one else, anymore than we can all be Olympic gold medallists at dressage?

My 90 year old mother would never have a store card as she didn't want to be monitored.

However when the lady at the till told her that she could have saved £14 on her two meal deals, she signed up like a flash 😂

However she doesn't do online banking and I'm actually glad as she's had a few scamming phone calls, but just leads them on and after half an hour asks "do you think I can't find the "send money" button because I don't have a computer. (She's like that AI bot!!)

I think most people in their 70s though are quite tech savvy

@shrunkenhead have your parents being living in a cave (lighthearted - I don't mean to sound rude).
Cash machines mostly became a thing in the 80s (but have been around since the late 60s).
Where have they been for 40 odd years ?

@WeWillGetThereInTheEnd that sounds like a learning difficulty or (as you said) early dementia.
Which is different to just being stubborn - which unfortunately some people are.

I'm not ignoring it. I just don't agree. Fine if people like your mum make the choice not to engage, but let's not pretend it is anything other than. Doesn't want to is not the same as can't. Your mum could have acquired a device of some description or travelled to a library if she so wished at some point.

Loads of people didn’t even have bank accounts until DWP rule changes meant pensions/child benefit etc dictated that they’d only pay by direct payment. You used to go to the post office with a book and take it out in cash. Even 20 years ago, I used to get my wages in cash in an envelope at the end of the week.

It's not clear how old the parents are in the OP, I was thinking about 90 as that is around what mine would be but I guess they might be around my age which is 67, there is a big difference.

It does worry me when people who drive cars claim they can't figure out how to pay for parking when it's a scan code payment system.
Should they still be driving?
Driving is a fairly hard skill and drivers need to be quick and alert to their surroundings.
If they can still do that - why can't they learn how a scan code works?
I don't mean that in a rude and dismissive way I am just genuinely curious.

She’s disabled now, why would she travel to a library 8 miles away to learn something that, as far as she could see, would be zero used to her?

It’s only with the benefit of hindsight that we now know that eventually people would need internet access. You don’t seem able to grasp that.

Are you always this nasty or is it just on here

Which bit was nasty?

My late DF used to say that the Internet was just a fad that would fizzle out and be superseded by something else.

OTOH an old chap, I’d guess 80+, once came into the small library where I worked. He brought a newspaper article featuring a website about something he was very interested in.

He had never touched a computer in his life. But I sat with him for a few minutes, showing him the very basics, how to click on something, go back, etc.
He ‘got it’ straightaway, and went off saying how wonderful it was, he was going to buy a computer immediately!

OTOH there were others, oh dear…. One woman needed to register an email address for something, so I sat with her for longer than I should have, setting it up, and emphasising that the password she wanted to use - her dh had dreamed it up) wouldn’t do - it was just a jumble of letters and numbers and she refused to write it down! - her dh had told her she mustn’t!

I explained that unless she entered it exactly it wouldn't work, but she insisted - so of course once it was all set up and she first tried to log in, it didn’t work.
I didn’t have time to help her again - I’d spent too much time with her already.

Just wait until we’re at war and the Chinese take out our internet. The younger generations won’t be able to cope, but the old dears will be bossing life.

Yes computers have been around for several decades now but for many there has been no pressing need to use them. It’s only relatively recently that they became an essential part of life. If you had a job that didn’t require them, and many didn’t, then there were few reasons to make use of them unless you had a particular interest.

My Mother worked 3 jobs at one point. She had little interest or time for playing James Pond, Mario or Sonic and better things to do when she did have time.

I remember dial-up internet being incredibly slow and expensive. I don’t think it’s surprising that many people didn’t get onboard especially when it was more of a novelty than a necessity.

Computers may have been increasingly common in offices and in homes from the 1990s onwards, but it was still easy to access traditional services like banking, insurance and shopping without them.

It's the ending of the alternatives that disadvantages people who cannot access internet services or would prefer not to.

I think some of you are exaggerating how common these things were at that point though. Yes, they may have existed in the 90s, but they weren't that widespread. I finished uni and started work in 1993 - at uni we had been recommended to get an amstrad word processor to write our essays on, but few people did because they cost the equivalent of almost a term's grant.

My job came with an email address, for several years the only person I could email was my boyfriend who worked in a university. Only one person we knew had a mobile phone. I didn't get one till 2004 and even then it was one of the little indestructible Nokia's.

My dad was a science and technology teacher - he was bringing computers home from the days when you had to link them up to your TV and a cassette player. He had apple macs for years before i-things became trendy. But in his 80s now he still really struggles with a smartphone.

I have never paid for parking using an app. I prefer to pay by cash, on the odd occasion pay by card.

I don't want to download yet another app to my phone and then scroll through my phone to find the app to scan and pay. Much quicker to just pay with coins.

My mum was a teacher, and retired before a computer in every classroom was the norm. She would never have had a computer at home, because why would she? She was used to, and preferred shopping/banking in person, dealing with paperwork in hard copy/by post; by the time doing those things online became the default, she was 72, and suddenly becoming a digital native seemed scary, and too much. She's now in her 80s, and I do what needs doing re car insurance etc/pension, and she writes letters in longhand to everyone.

Yes the parking app thing is really annoying, why would I want to have to download a load of different apps for different car parks? Plus now it's coming out that some of them are charging extra non-transparent fees when you use them, and also that there are instances of scammers replacing the genuine QR codes with fake ones. Chucking coins in a slot was a hell of a lot easier.