Did you know that well over half of the older adults in the U.S. – those who are 65 or older –are now online? According to Pew Research 84% of American adults and 58% of older adults are now use the Internet.
While older adults may traditionally be slower to adopt new technologies than younger age groups, this is increasingly changing. Now that older adults are using the Internet, it is becoming an integral part of their daily lives – among older adults who use the internet, 71% go online daily with 82% going on at least three to five times per week.
While older adults are increasingly using the Internet for everything from healthcare to social media – there is still room to improve.
For example, wireless technology — from smartphones to tablets — have made it much easier for all Americans to access the Internet. Yet there is still seen a large disparity in adoption between our older adults and the younger generation. Only a quarter (27%) of adults ages 65 and older own a smartphone, compared with 85% of 18- to 29-year-olds, according to Pew Research.
Our mission at Project GOAL is to get more older adults online to help improve their daily lives. One of the main ways to accomplish this objective is to help older adults to feel more comfortable about using new technologies.
As a Washington, D.C. based organization, we recently embarked on an educational video series and interviewed older individuals from the D.C. metro area to see how technology is positively impacting their lives. The goal of these videos is to share how comfortable older adults can become when adopting new technologies such as smartphones, tablets, broadband, and fiber, now and in the future in the Washington, D.C. area. Embracing technology today and in the future is key for our older adult community. It can truly improve our daily life – just listen to these folks below!
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