by 
A while ago I wrote about some of the issues we encounter when engaging youth online and how people sometimes assume that young people will come to a website just because it is a website. Of course this is wrong.
Equally wrong are the people who assume that older people (the over 65s) cannot be engaged online. Actually many of our retirees are very active online.
Going back to early in this decade Jeremy Trogg wrote in Senior Mag (an American publication):
Though people over 60 still lag behind their younger counterparts in Internet usage, the number of seniors online is expected to swell from 14 million in 2000 to more than 27 million in by 2003, according to Internet market research firm Jupiter Media Metrix.
The main reason seniors start using computers is because of e-mail. Next, they begin researching topics such as health, investing and entertainment. Then, they start shopping and join discussion groups.
Although I couldn’t find a date you can see that this is quite an old article but I thought it worth noting the usage patterns which are exactly the same as those of younger age groups.
Moving forward in time Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported in 2007 that:
…41 per cent of retired Britons named internet usage as one of their favourite pastimes. DIY and gardening were named by 39 per cent, hobbies by 36 per cent and travel and walking by 28 per cent. Four in 10 retired people said they were regular internet shoppers.
The most popular online activity was emailing (84 per cent), followed by searching for information (83 per cent). The survey found that 45 per cent bought travel tickets online, 35 per cent used internet banks and 28 per cent surfed the internet for news.
That’s right folks it’s official web surfing is more popular with retired people than gardening and needlework – whatever is the world coming to?
Coming back to Australia, and right up to date, the latest data from the Australian Communications and Media Authority tells us that:
In mid-2008, older Australians reported below average use of the internet. More than half (56 per cent) of survey respondents aged over 65 used the internet in the past 12 months, compared with 89 per cent on average, and much higher levels of use reported by younger age groups.
It is clear that web use amoungst older Australians and older people across the developed world is growing and, in many cases, growing faster than it is in younger age groups. Though this high growth is becasue the usage is coming off a lower base.
Here’s a thought. It might be that 56% (the number of over 65s in Australia using the internet) is a high enough number for this demographic group to be well represented or even over represented in an online engagement.
Although online engagement reaches many more of the community than other engagement methodologies we don’t get the whole community logging on. There are many people in society (of all ages) who are just not interested no matter how you serve the issue up to them. I wonder whether there is a coincidence between the group of elderly people who are online and those who participate in civic issues.
Whatever the answer to that it doesnt remove the imperative to strive for greater access (something Crispin has written about on this blog in the past). Nor does it mean that online engagement should not be complimented by other techniques that target those who are not online. But it’s a thought.
We might have to survey our users to find out.
Sorry about the nun.
This work by Bang the Table Pty Ltd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia License.
I have found with online community consultation that older people are over represented rather than under represented.