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.

@NImumconfused yes I do think some people are exaggerating things on this thread - those claiming their elderly relatives have never touched/used a computer in their lives. They may have not personally used one - as in their fingers touching the keys - but they will have times in their life where something was done for them on a computer.
Computers and the internet have been in people's lives for years now. They are just another thing like toasters and washing machines.
To refuse to have anything to do with the internet is just being stubborn.

Plus all of the internet based stuff requires a decent level of literacy, and I think many people don't realise just how big a proportion of the population just doesn't have this. The average reading level is much lower than you'd think.

I'm 66 and got my first computer ( big fat thing) when Tim Berners Lee invented the WWW.
Had one or a laptop ever scince.. yes my Grandsons are now better than me.. with their coding etc.. but l still think I'm quite good .

I think it's perfectly possible for the very elderly not to have used it themselves, but yes they probably will have needed someone else to do something using a computer at some point. I don't necessarily think that they haven't learned to use it just because they're stubborn.

@2dogsandabudgie @NImumconfused yes but you clearly know what an app is and how they work.
It the people (not just elderly) who claim they don't understand them and they are "too hard" to learn how to use them - should they be incharge of driving a car?

They may have not personally used one - as in their fingers touching the keys - but they will have times in their life where something was done for them on a computer.

This is getting ridiculous now. They’re hardly the same thing. I’ve lived in a house but that doesn’t qualify me to build one.

@NImumconfused so if it's not being stubborn - what is it then?
(not including medical/learning difficulties/mental health etc)

I don't really think the two things are particularly related, tbh. I have older relatives who are great on the internet but terrible drivers and vice versa.

@NotCamping what do you mean?
The original question of this thread was "why have some elderly not embraced the internet".
There is a difference between not having the equipment or knowledge of how to do it vs asking your grandson to order you something from Amazon.
It's the claims of "my grandad never used a computer in his life" that are over the top. They might not have personally but someone else will have frequently done things on their behalf on a computer.

My 80-something mother hasn't. She was a SAHM and is totally against technology (sat nav, mobile phone, computer).

@NImumconfused if they are terrible drivers then I hope they have stopped driving 😱

My mother has never used a computer, I find it impossible to believe she's the only person who hasn't.

She doesn't have a mobile either

Some older people just don't need to want to learn new technology. As a PP said its a million times easier for me to do what she needs that try to explain something she would never understand plus obviously the cost of buying a computer/mobile/internet connection

@SheilaFentiman yes but does she buy food from a supermarket?
Because she can't be completely anti technology if she does 😂

I think that's the key point really. I'm not sure people really anticipated the old ways would disappear quite so completely, so it was just seen as an extra or an alternative and therefore not necessary

I never expected that my GP booking system would be entirely online, even 5 years ago I'd have said unlikely.

@DreamW3aver yes but a lot of the technology isn't new. Basic mobile phones have been available cheaply since the 90s.

Nope. DBro and I do her online order.

Anti-using-technology-herself, if you prefer.

@SheilaFentiman so that goes back to the "being stubborn" argument 😂

And again it’s only pretty recently that the internet has been more than a novelty. I’ve used the internet since I was about 10.(I’m 40 now) I used to go to internet cafes for an hour until we got home internet when I was about 12. I can tell you what I used it for, reading fan fiction, chatting about musicals and horses and books, games and music. My Father used to to read about football, for music, games and to read and discuss his own particular interests.

Now I still use it for fun but I also use it to pay bills, apply for a new job, shop, arrange trips to the dump, register with my local council for essential services, make appointments and various other important aspects of life but not that long ago it was just fun for the majority of people, nice to have but not at all essential and there was no pressing need to learn about it unless you did need it for work.

My DM is in her nineties and spent 40 years working as an NHS physio. At the point she retired she hadn't needed to use IT at work as patient records and professional communications were still paper based.

After retirement she realised email was becoming important, bought a lap top and went to IT classes but never got confident because she didn't use it enough for it to become second nature. After a while she gave up because most things could be dealt with by phone/letter/in person so it didn't impact her life too much at that point and so she got left behind with IT skills.

DH and I are in our 50s and we're late adopters of mobile phones as we lived in an area with no signal for a long time so they weren't that useful.

I think it can be really difficult for someone of any age to learn and retain a skill if you don't use it all the time.

OP, how old do you mean by old? I am early 70s and I really don’t think anyone my age has an excuse. I do everything online. My father in law who would be over 100 if he was alive now spent most of his spare time in retirement on his computer doing spreadsheets etc.

I’m in my mid 50s and have grown up with the birth of home computing. I had a zx spectrum in the 80s, a massive work laptop with a green screen in the early 90s, and got on the internet around 96 when I went to work in a university. I went to the Uks first internet cafe Cyberia around the same time, and bought my first PC from Tiny soon after. It cost me 1300 quid, a lot of money back then. Most people had no use for computers back then, they only started becoming mainstream after that, so not that long ago. All my parents are/were computer savvy, my MIL has never touched one in her life, she had no need. It has been a huge change in not that long a time, people should realise that it’s a big adjustment for some people.

It's the claims of "my grandad never used a computer in his life" that are over the top. They might not have personally but someone else will have frequently done things on their behalf on a computer.

Because how the hell does being in the same room as someone who used a computer n their behalf, often on the other side of a desk, mean that they suddenly know how to use one? You don’t learn by osmosis.

I’ve been in the same room as an electrician, who did work for me on my behalf, but his knowledge of the electrical trade didn’t magically transmit to me.

Those things potentially cover quite a proportion of people who don't use it, but a pp further back posted some other potential reasons. Fear of mistakes is a big one I think, and the possible consequences.

I was at a training session at work the other day for a new website - the website designer said if you take away only one thing from this morning, just remember that you can't break it - I've designed it so that you don't have access to anything that could break it, so don't panic. And that was to a group of 30-50-something degree educated people who work with computers all day long. That fear is much greater if you haven't been used to them.

I also think it's really mainly the last five to ten years or so that it's become very difficult to do many things offline. COVID accelerated this hugely of course, but I don't think sufficient consideration has been given to making sure online options are accessible to everyone.

I totally agree. And I bet you are a similar age to me.

I think the bottom line is... is it 'can't' or 'won't'

If it's the latter its very annoying because they have to rely on others to do their life admin. And these people in their 50s/60s/70s who refuse to embrace it... what about back in the day monitoring what your children are doing on the internet? We are early 70s, our adult DCs obviously had no smartphones but were on a dial up monitor going on all sorts of stuff on the internet (MSN, Habbo Hotel etc). If you didn't make yourself familiar with it all, how could you check

I worked in a library for a while around 2005 and there was a club for older people who wanted to start using computers. A lot of them would instinctively read web pages like a book, left to right starting at the top and including all the adverts. Some of them got the hang of it but a few never did. I’m sure we’ll all come across things that don’t come naturally to us once we’re in our 80s!

My grandad was the first person I knew to have his own computer in the 80s, he would have been about 65 then. I used to love going to his house to play Space Invaders and Pac-Man!