A recent segment on National Public Radio, “Dating Apps Can Help Older Adults Meet — No Time Machine Necessary”, relates the story of Anna, a senior citizen who made the decision to use online dating apps in her mission to meet a romantic partner. Anna jokes that she may be one of the first people to ever use online dating. In 1978, while in high school, Anna was assigned to work in her school’s computer lab. The computer she was using was connected to a mainframe computer in a neighboring town. Other high schools were also connected to this computer which made it possible for students at different locations to communicate with each other electronically. One such interaction led to Anna finding a date to her senior prom. This experience made Anna comfortable singing up for a dating website decades later. The NPR segment goes on to detail Anna’s online dating journey and how the experience can be particularly challenging for someone in their later years of life. This story made me consider how senior citizens navigate the rapid advances of technology and if the “digital divide” between older adults and younger people is narrowing as technology becomes increasingly more necessary.
The “digital divide” is the social, economic, and demographic factors that exist between individuals who use computers and those who do not. The divide between the younger people and the elderly may exist due to a number of reasons. The elderly may not have the dexterity to operate technology. They may dislike change which restricts their adoption of new technology or feel as if advances in technology is more of a young person’s initiative. Also, elderly individuals are subject to age-related declines in visual and auditory sensory processes, motor skills and cognitive abilities. This can present a challenge since most technology devices employ very small plugs, wires, keyboards. interfaces, mouse, etc. that may be difficult for seniors (Peng, 2010). These issues as well as the fact that most technology is not designed with the elderly in mind are all contributing factors to the of broadening the “digital divide.”
In the United States. seniors (aged 65 and over) are the fastest growing proportion of the population (NIH, 2016). With an increase in the proportion of elderly people comes an increase in health concerns related to that group. Access to readily-available online health information specific to the needs of the senior population is another factor that should be considered when developing strategies to narrow the “digital divide”. Making online health information more usable and making computers and the internet more accessible can help to improve the health and wellbeing of seniors.
References
Roman, L., & Brown, A. (2018, January 30). Dating Apps Can Help Older Adults Meet – No Time Machine Necessary. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2018/01/30/581043485/dating-apps-can-help-older-adults-meet-no-time-machine-necessary.
Peng, G. (2010). Critical mass, diffusion channels, and digital divide. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 50(3), 63-71. doi:10.1080/08874417.2010.11645408
World’s older population grows dramatically. (2016, March 28). Retrieved from https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/worlds-older-population-grows-dramatically.
I completely agree with you that narrowing the digital divide will benefit senior citizens. I used to work in a pharmacy, and it was a constant struggle for senior citizens to get medication refills authorized from their doctors. Most doctor offices now are converting to online requests for appointments, medication requests, and questions. Unfortunately, most of my older patients did not know how to submit a medication request online for their doctors offices, so they would either run out of medication, or come very close to doing so.