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player ready...Call it the graying of cyberspace. Seniors are growing more interested in computers–and businesses are taking note.
Older adults weren’t the first to enter the market, but they’re catching up fast: Almost one in three adults age 55 and older now owns a computer, a 43 percent jump from 18 months ago, according to SeniorNet, a national non-profit organization that promotes computer literacy for older adults.
The number of older people who use on-line services also is climbing. Of the estimated 50 million users, more than 7 million are older than 50.
Most of the current research shows that people in their teens and 20s, and those over 55, are more likely to use computers outside the office than those in between.
Many of these computer-savvy seniors have above-average incomes and education–in other words, they’re a great market for those with something to sell.
A new San Francisco-based company is counting on that market.
Third Age Media, launched in May, includes a news service, research arm and World Wide Web site, which it touts as the first comprehensive site for active older adults (http://www.thirdage.com).
Third Age hopes to generate revenue from its Web site through corporate sponsorship, advertising and purchase transactions over the Internet, said spokesman Bryan Preston.
For instance, if an older user orders a wine through the on-line wine shop Virtual Vineyards, Third Age will get a transaction fee. The Web site includes areas on health, government news, finance, technology, relationships, a chat room and a marketplace.
“I think there’s some experimenting going on,” Preston said. “But I think what our company is basically founded on is to say the commercial views of aging–that the only thing we’re going to have is Geritol and Depends–is simply not true.”
Businessman Charlie Presley of Salem, Ohio, has just discovered the Internet’s power to lure the leisure market. Presley, who deals in travel information for seniors, didn’t have any specific goal when he put up a Web site last May, but he’s pleased at what happened.
Presley is the president of Group Leaders of America, a firm that offers travel information to 20,000 seniors who lead tours for their peers.
“We’re hyperlinked (connected on-line) to everyone who’s important in the travel industry,” Presley said. “I’m getting 10 to 15 new members every week, just on the Web. People said they didn’t even know we existed before.”
Presley said his site (http://www.glamer.com) is straightforward, just like his overall marketing approach.
“It’s not a complicated thing,” he said. “There are people out there, and we’re doing business.”
There are several reasons for the sudden rise in older computer users, said Jack Driscoll, who works with older adults at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s News in the Future Consortium in Boston.
In recent years, computers have become easier to use, and are more readily available at community sites such as libraries and senior centers, Driscoll said. Plus, seniors tend to have more time to learn and use computers. But Driscoll and others say the most compelling reason is an older adult’s desire to be connected to family.
“The thing seniors are most passionate about is their grandchildren,” said Driscoll, who recently retired as editor of the Boston Globe. “The people who are most conversant with computers are young people. And so for seniors to have dialogue with their grandchildren, they have to understand computers and the Internet.”
For seniors already computer-literate, computers become a shared family interest. Retired executive Robert Thompson, a volunteer teacher with SeniorNet at Rockynol Retirement Community in Akron, Ohio, said his 13-year-old grandson recently spent three weeks in Akron. The two talked computers.
“He brought me up to date,” said Thompson, who maintains three Internet accounts.
Summa Health System of Akron considers older adults one of its key groups to target on its year-old Web site (http://www.summahealth.org), said spokeswoman Amanda Balika.
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“The person who heads up our Web site returned from a conference two months ago,” she said. “One of the things he brought back from that conference was the fact that more and more seniors are using the Internet. If we had not been serious about it prior to that, we really have been serious about it since.”
In some cases, businesses that offer services to the elderly also want to reach their younger relatives through the World Wide Web, the graphics-heavy, most easily navigated region of the Internet.
Rockynol Retirement Community plans to create a Web site within the year, said marketing director Paul Wolford. He said many of the people who move to Rockynol were former Akron residents who moved away from the city, then decided to return for their later years.
Wolford predicted younger computer users probably will use his site more than seniors. Younger relatives often help their loved ones research the Akron area to see what living options are available.
One thing likely to be on Rockynol’s Web site–a description of its on-site computer learning center.