December 11, 2002

The Aging Net

Each year more and more seniors are using the Internet. Web designers should take notice.

By Henry Jenkins

With this column, I pay tribute to my mother, who passed away last month, and to the many others of her generation who were early adopters of digital technologies.

Throughout the 1990s, the highest growth in Internet usage occurred on the extreme ends of the age scale among the young and the old. Seniornet, one of several nonprofit groups providing Internet and computer training and services for older Americans, found that 4 out of 10 seniors currently have access to a personal computer. Of those, 80 percent accessed the Internet in the past week. The highest growth currently occurs among those just entering the retirement age. Many of them (like my mother whose last job was providing administrative support to a software company) were introduced to computers at work and now use them in their everyday lives. In fact, my mother had her own PC before I did.

As the baby boomers retire, we are going to see an even more dramatic rise in the number of seniors online. Today, there are 35 million senior citizens in the United States. By 2020, when most baby boomers have reached retirement age, those numbers will soar to 54 million. How will the graying of the American population impact the Web's future?

The Internet may help some seniors live autonomous lives by, for instance, facilitating outside contact for those who are homebound. For the more able-bodied, the Internet will open up new vistas for exploration. So far, few Web sites specifically address seniors, and those that do typically target a narrow (but essential) range of topics: retirement and social security, medical issues, death and grief, and religion. The aging baby boomers-who are expected to enjoy longer and healthier lives than previous generations-will demand a significantly broader range of activities. Today, seniors make up a significant portion of the online traffic to travel-related sites. As they remain sexually active later in life, they will seek safe-sex information from the Internet that they may be embarrassed to request from doctors or family members. A third of all current Seniornet subscribers play computer games (mostly bridge and checkers to be sure), but a growing number enjoy multiplayer game worlds-vast fantasy realms where they can play at being bards or innkeepers, or Navy SEALs. Some reports have even found that seniors buy more music online than teens do.

Designing digital content for America's youth seems hot and sexy; getting predominantly young designers to develop content for seniors is like pulling teeth. In our media convergence class, my co-teacher, Chris Weaver, and I developed a project to get MIT students to interview seniors through Seniornet's local training centers and then prototype sites based on what they learned. Many students, undoubtedly spooked by the idea of spending time reflecting on what life was like after 65, dropped the class rather than complete the assignment. Those who remained found the experience rewarding, developing a range of senior-oriented sites that might well work in the current marketplace, including music and travel services and even a mentor program that connects troubled teens with elders ready to provide advice.

The interests and life experiences of seniors are significantly underrepresented on television. Seniors watch on average 10 hours more week than any other demographic group, yet the Nielsen Ratings significantly undercounts seniors, and networks dread the stigma of too many of these undesirable eyeballs. It isn't that seniors buy fewer goods; rather (the thinking goes) their brand preferences are more firmly established and thus less affected by advertising.