Client Education

A Great Senior Life

The Computer Age

By: Jim Radcliffe, Special to AccentCare

Clarence Odell, 84, hits his Hewlett-Packard even before settling down with a cup of coffee and his Sacramento Bee newspaper. He's got to know whether his stocks are blasting off or nose-diving. "When it's up, I feel good; when it's down, I feel bad," says Odell with a big chuckle.

The Carbos of Fort Myers, Fla., keep in touch with family members via e-mail, check out son Bob's wacky Web site about his huge catapult that he unleashes at pumpkin-chucking contests and search out answers on the Internet when they get stumped. "We do a lot of crossword puzzles and we look things up," explains Barb Carbo, 75.

Herman Myers, 71, and an ex-classmate discussed starting up a newsletter for the Class of 1946 at Allegany High in Cumberland, Md. Why not a Web site's Today, two years later, Myers passes along news to his son, Jeff, who posts it on the site. Twenty-eight Allegany Campers who graduated that year are now in touch.

"I's a bachelor," says Myers, who lives in a Baltimore suburb. "Each day I get up, I want to see who's on my mail. It's like another person is in my house. I turn on the doggone thing, I've got 15 messages." And so it goes for the groundswell of senior citizens who could show their grandchildren a thing or two about the Internet.

According to Media Metrix, a New York consulting company that measures Internet usage, 45- to 64-year-old Americans are coming to the Internet in a greater percentage than any other segment that is tracked. From January to December 1999, Media Metrix says, the number of Internet users in this age group rose 18.4 percent; second place went to 18- to 24-year-olds, whose Net ranks grew by 17.5 percent.

Further, the 45-to-64-age group surfed the Net more often, spent more time online and visited more Internet pages than their younger computer brethren. Media Metrix hasn? measured usage by those 65 and older (a spokesman says that the clients who commissioned the recent survey were after data for users up to 65, so the polling was not expanded). But, experts agree, seniors are flocking to computer classes and stampeding to the Net like everyone else.

"I think it's pretty safe to say that they are adapting to the technology," says Max Kalehoff, a senior manager of Media Metrix's marketing group. "Originally, you had a lot of the younger folks. ... Certainly, the baby boomers and the seniors are coming on line." And why shouldn? seniors be logging on in large numbers? They have the time, the resources and the knowledge, says Stacy Dieter, a spokeswoman for San Francisco-based SeniorNet, a nonprofit group that encourages computer use by those 50 and older.

Some seniors have trouble seeing the words on the monitor screen or might suffer hand tremors that make it difficult to maneuver the mouse. Others don? know what a "cursor" is while 12-year-olds who grew up in a techno world do, Dieter says. That's about it for stumbling blocks. "Once they are up and running, no, I don't think there are any obstacles," she says. "They have the knowledge. There isn't anything to stop them."

Janet Russ, executive director of the Maumee (Ohio) Senior Center, said seniors often get the computer bug from their grandchildren. They want to head straight to the fun stuff on the Internet, especially electronic-mail messages, or e-mail. Her staff slows down beginners, requiring them to first take a basic computer class so they have a working knowledge of the hardware and the software before waltzing into the Internet? glitz.

Then, the seniors can sign up for the center's popular, 12-hour Internet class ? thousands of similar classes are given across the country, that teaches them how to zip off e-mail and explore Web sites focusing on virtually any subject. "Our seniors love the Internet," Russ says. "They fill up the class real quick. They are always e-mailing me, ?eck out this Web site. "The older adults, they really want to learn."

Two professors who have studied computer use among seniors say that the combination is healthy. A study published in 1995 by Douglas McConatha, a sociologist who teaches at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, determined that Internet use dramatically improved the mental health of seniors in nursing homes with disabilities.

It follows that the Internet enhances the lives of healthy seniors, too, McConatha says, in part because cyberspace can "slow the aging process down" by encouraging thinking. McConatha agrees with SeniorNet? Dieter that you can teach an older person a new trick: He says that he has seen plenty of seniors pick up the Net? nuances quicker than his college students: "The point is making it relevant to them , that sells."

Like McConatha, Ruth Zemke, a USC professor of occupational therapy, doesn? worry about computers isolating seniors from more active activities, a fear many have with teen-agers and computers. "My experience was people tend to be the type of people they already were," the professor says. "Today, to be involved with computers is to be involved with society, at least middle-income society. It gives you new ideas. You have something that is part of today ? not yesterday."

In fact, Zemke and her five siblings got Dad, 76, a computer. The family sends off e-mails to each other. "Because we are comfortable with it, because it is contemporary, we share our feelings more easily," she says.

McConatha isn't surprised that a stereotype lingers that seniors aren't using the Net much; he has worked on aging issues for 30 years and knows society's biases. What does surprise him is that government and commerce have been slow to create sites geared to seniors. "I think that is a major shift that we are going to see in the next few years,? he says. "I think people don't recognize the power these computers can have in the lives of older people. The opportunities are just boundless."

The "Mature Mouseketeers," as some call them, head to the Internet for various reasons. Odell, the Citrus Heights, Calif., resident who checks his stocks each morning, got his start with computers five years ago when a son gave him a word processor. Then he decided to upgrade. "I didn't get serious about it until I got this unit, about a year and a half ago," he says. "We have it in the family room. ... Yeah, it? an interesting plaything."

Odell keeps tabs on the football and basketball teams of his alma mater, Oklahoma State, and professional basketball's Sacramento Kings. The retired contract administrator for a rocket manufacturer exchanges e-mails with his six children and occasionally dashes off a missive to a grandson in Sicily. Sure, he hadn? typed much in years. And wending through cyberspace frustrated him at first — and occasionally still does. But Odell just plows ahead with his computer. "No, I don't intimidate much," he says, chuckling. "I cussed at it a few times. Of course, I'm sure it hears."

Carbo, the crossword-puzzle player, didn't take to computers until years after husband Ed bought one. "I was just afraid that I would do something wrong and ruin it," Barb Carbo recalls. "I got over that. I stuck to what I knew for a long time. Now, I experiment — I realized that it wouldn't bite." The Carbos don't go surfing on the Web much, but the Internet brings them closer to information and loved ones. They search out health tips and are linked via e-mail to their 125-home retirement community. Like with most seniors, e-mail is tops in the Internet kingdom for the Carbos.

"I can talk back and forth with my daughter, like if one of her kids is sick. I've had a lot of experience, with eight kids," says Barb Carbo. "If you write a letter, you have to wait forever for snail mail." Snail mail, as Internet pros like Carbo know, is Net parlance for traditional mail service.

Myers, the Maryland man linking up his high school classmates of more than a half-century ago, worked with computers for 38 years with the Social Security Administration, where he was a data-processing manager. Working on a personal computer is different, but he, too, pushed forward and is glad that he did.

There is talk of shuttering Allegany High School, so his site tells alums which politicians to lobby to keep it open. The ex-classmates post warm memories about the movie theaters and skating rinks they hung out at back in the 80's. Myers, a golfer, sets up tee times with out-of-town friends via e-mail, eliminating costly telephone calls. He sends golf jokes to his ex-wife, who volleys them to her boyfriend. He researches his family roots.

"I've located cousins I never knew were alive," Myers says. "Now, I'm in contact with them. That's great stuff."