The Retired Get Wired
from the good-for-them dept
I recently visited my grandparents, and they showed me exactly how they spend time every night reading Techdirt using their WebTV. My grandfather controls the remote control to select where to go and to scroll pages, while my grandmother reads everything outloud. Not surprisingly, there are plenty of other retirees who find the internet a useful tool even if very few people pay attention to how they use the internet. More and more senior citizens are getting online, often pushed by their children or grandchildren who want to stay in closer touch. However, once they get online, they often find plenty more to do then just email their relatives.
Comments on “The Retired Get Wired”
Seniors and the Internet
I taught an “Introduction to the Internet” class at a local library for three years, and at least 70% of my classes were seniors. Some of them just wanted to stay up with technology, and many of them had very specific things they wanted to accomplish – usually something to do with hobbies like geneology, quilting, sewing, old cars, etc.
They are a vastly under-served population. It never ceased to surprise me how hard some sites are to read, and how difficult it is for some seniors to manipulate a mouse as precisely as some navigation schemes demand.