Abstract
If offline older citizens remain offline they will become increasingly disadvantaged from a socio-ecological point of view, as the Internet’s societal pervasiveness progresses. We study reasons for non-use and the frequency, intensity, and, the socio-demographic correlates of Internet use of older citizens in Europe. Theoretical relationships on the individual and societal level are ascertained. The Eurobarometer of 2003 offers a range of variables to explore the diffusion of Internet technology among 55+ year-old people in Europe. Descriptive statistics and population average models are used to identify the correlates of Internet access. Within the population segment of older citizens, age continues to have a differentiating effect, net of marital, occupational, and educational status for Internet access. Model replications show that only a few of the net coefficients differ in size. Decisions to remain offline are mainly based on private access possibilities, motivational indifference, and deficient knowledge. Existing socioeconomic inequalities regarding Internet access crystallise within the older population, particularly in the Southern regions of Europe. A claim is made for a necessity to maintain efforts to close the digital age gap.
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Notes
Panel or life history data are needed to discern such effects. With the data used here we cannot distinguish between age and cohort effects. To our knowledge, publicly available panel information on the Internet use of older adults in Europe does not exist.
The social reality of the middle-aged population also entails that many will be likely to be living together with teenage children, a fact that has been proven to increase older people’s likelihood to use computers and Internet (see Korupp and Szydlik 2005). We thank an anonymous reviewer for emphasising this point. Unfortunately, we are unable to follow up on this issue in our European comparative model, because the data does not contain this information.
The terminology “digital divide” is defined as a division between individuals and households at different socio-economic levels, here in connection with the use of the Internet (cf. Korupp and Szydlik 2005).
Included are (in alphabetical order): Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and The Netherlands. The empirical results presented for the respective countries are based on representative data (ZA 2006). Additional empirical replications of our model with the European Social Survey from 2004 yielded similar results to the ones presented here.
We discuss items that were ticked by more than 5% of the senior population. Other items that non-users were able to choose were: “I have no time”, “I have no computer at work”, “there is no public access point”, “the technical barriers are too high”, “the Internet is not secure enough”, “existing language barriers”, “problems with the provider”, “other reasons”, respectively, “unspecified” (question 47, 59.2 Eurobarometer survey).
Note, that these percentages cannot be added because multiple responses were possible.
The age of the respondents in the models ranges between 55 and 96, with a mean of 68 years and a standard deviation of eight years (Table not shown).
Analysing current occupational status serves to compare effects of retirement and unemployment to paid employment without an unnecessary inflation of the model variance (e.g., using educational/occupational level and income), and it serves as a rough indicator for financial resources.
We excluded a small group of current students (n = 12).
A replication of the current model carried out with the European Social Survey (2004) showed consistently significant gender effects at an advanced life stage, nevertheless requiring additional empirical support.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the participants of the Section on Ageing and Society (DGS) at the Spring/Summer Conference 2006 in Vechta (22–24 June 2006), the anonymous reviewers, and the editor for their useful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
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Peacock, S.E., Künemund, H. Senior citizens and Internet technology. Eur J Ageing 4, 191–200 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-007-0067-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-007-0067-z