It’s an undeniable fact that most seniors hardly accept technology. They prefer using smartphones that have basic features only. Also, most of them don’t like using computers and don’t follow the latest trends in the digital world. Seniors have plenty of time to explore new technology. However, they don’t use the opportunity to do so and can hardly start using new devices. Let’s elaborate on this problem and discover why many seniors struggle with new technology.
Fast-Paced Technology Development
These days, technologies develop at a high pace. New devices with jaw-dropping features appear constantly. It increases the pace of life significantly. Boomers and Millennials learned to adapt to new technologies. However, baby boomers who represent seniors live at a slower pace. They don’t consume tons of information daily. Most of them fail to keep up with the recent trends, so they struggle to learn about new devices and their features. However, the fast development of technology isn’t the only reason many seniors struggle with new devices, even though they simplify people’s lives significantly.
Habits and Gap in Technology
The majority of young people are used to living with their smartphones. They use them to create a shopping list, pay for purchases, chat with friends, order a ride, or find information online. For example, most millennials use their smartphones and tablets to discover new recipes.
However, seniors have already developed solid habits to perform most tasks without the help of technology. For instance, they have been using notebooks with pens to create shopping lists for 40 years, on average. It is a solution that works well for them, so most seniors don’t want to replace it with apps on smartphones. They use cash to pay for their purchases and use books to find new recipes. Also, they use phones to communicate with their mates or request a ride.
There is a large gap in technology between different generations, so many baby boomers think that they won’t keep up with all the new information. For example, some seniors can hardly imagine how students order a midterm paper from skilled writers within a minute. Indeed, many seniors decide not to switch to new devices because they already have solutions that work well. They don’t look for upgrades to books or TV sets. Having a small desire to dive deep into the world of new technologies, seniors give up when they face any issues with new devices.
Health Issues
The logic of work and interfaces of modern devices look familiar to young people. However, many seniors didn’t follow the news about developing new devices and programs. Therefore, they need to learn a lot of new information from scratch. The amount of knowledge needed to become a skilled user is huge. Therefore a lot of seniors struggle with new technology.
Moreover, some of them have additional health problems that make using new devices more challenging. For example, some seniors may experience problems focusing on particular tasks. As a result, they can hardly learn all the features of new devices. In addition, since they don’t need to use the technology constantly, they don’t polish their knowledge every day. Lack of repetitive actions makes the learning process more long and complicated.
Due to particular health issues, many seniors struggle to use smartphones. In addition, they frequently have vision problems, so seniors can hardly recognize small elements on screens. It’s required for them to wear glasses, to perform even a simple task on a device. Also, many seniors experience difficulties using touch screens because the skin on their fingers gets harder. It’s also known as leathery fingers. Consequently, different devices bring more problems than usefulness to seniors.
Concerns About Safety
The reason why many seniors don’t accept the technology is their concerns about safety and security. For starters, they have negative feelings about new devices because Boomers and Millennials stare at the screens of their smartphones almost constantly. Therefore, they are afraid to get addicted to new devices as well. Also, a lot of older adults are not confident about the security of new technologies. For instance, they don’t want to share their personal information using smartphones and store their data in a cloud because they are afraid others can access it. Besides, seniors do understand that they have poor digital literacy. Therefore, they can be easily cheated by scammers online. To keep their money safe and avoid problems, they decide not to use digital devices if there is no urgent need to do so.
In essence, there are a lot of different reasons why seniors struggle with technology. First, most of them don’t have the need and desire to learn using different devices because they can live without them. Also, they experience a lot of obstacles like health issues that make the use of technologies more challenging.
