Until recently, older people have been ignored by the online world. Jim McClellan looks at moves to get more mature users surfing the net.
Written by Jim McClellan - Thursday November 18, 2004 - appeared on The Guardian web site.
But most people his age or over never used the net at work and, because their children are a little bit older, they have never had a PC at home. "So a lot of them are frightened. Education is what is needed."
Organisations such as Age Concern - with help from Microsoft and Cable and Wireless - are attempting to bring the net to the over 65s, via events such as the Silver Surfer festival
silver surfers, a series of net "taster" sessions held at around 100 Age Concern sites during the past month. Though aimed at all over-50s, most attendees were in their late 70s / early 80s, according to Elizabeth Hickey, a spokeswoman for Age Concern. The idea behind the festival is to show older people the net in a familiar social setting. "When you're there, surfing with your real-world peers, it makes it all seem less threatening."
Other initiatives by Age Concern/ Microsoft include mobile net taster sessions across the UK and a roving IT bus (aka the Mini Explorer) based in the south-west, all of which aim to bring the net to day-care centres, sheltered housing and residential/ nursing homes. According to Hickey, the net can be life changing for many older people.
It is not just about the obvious benefits on offer - contact with friends and family and easy access to information about health, products, hobbies and government services. In a more general sense, the net can help them feel "connected" to wider society. More could be done to help the over-65s benefit from the net, says Hickey "And if business addresses the older users now, they will learn more about holding on to people in their 50s to 65s as they mature. They should speak more to older users now. Otherwise, they risk losing customers in the long run."
According to Alistair Baker, Microsoft UK's managing director, the "young old are already a significant part of the online economy". They are set to become more significant over time, he continues. "We're going to see a group of wealthy older consumers, with time and money, looking to spend but very focused on value for money."
Tapping into this market will pose some specific challenges. For one thing, the 50 to 65 age group don't think of themselves as "old", as "silver surfers". Although this group is often net and computer literate, thanks to exposure at work and home, they don't have much tolerance for technological novelty, according to Peter Bettley, head of public relations at
Saga.
The company has been gradually developing its online presence over the past few years, he says. It is currently focused on encouraging repeat visits and gradually building traffic, via services such as Saga Circles, which helps users contact old friends and work colleagues or start up new relationships. Given that, Saga takes great care over web design, says Bettley. Its regular usability tests show that "some navigational tools that are effective for younger audiences simply don't work with our market. Web design for people over 50 has to recognise that what works for younger people will not necessarily work for older people."
Bettley says Saga is developing slowly, recognising that this market is a "slow burn - it takes a while for them to develop". Demographic surveys indicate that the 50 to 65-year-old generation follow the same online developmental curve as younger people, starting with email and searching, then eventually moving on to shopping. However, it takes older users longer to develop, perhaps because their worries over security are more pronounced.
Might older users also follow the young and use the net as a political tool? Over the next 10 years, could the net become a channel for silver surfer activism? To an extent, it is happening already. You can download copies of the Pensioner's Manifesto online and read about campaigns at sites such as the National Pensioners Convention.
According to John Lynch, the retired 69 year old who helped design the NPC site and runs his own Seniors Network site, pensioner activists use the net to circulate information, but these are still early days. The real challenge is to get more older people online and talking to each other. That requires access issues to be addressed, he says. Most old people simply can't afford to buy a computer and pay for net access. He says he hopes he is doing his own small bit by putting up content and links to other sites that might interest silver surfers.
