Digital Media Usage Across the Life Course

Paul G. Nixon, Rajash Rawal, Andreas Funk

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317150756
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman declared the modern age in which we live as the 'age of distraction' in 2006. The basis of his argument was that technology has changed the ways in which our minds function and our capacity to dedicate ourselves to any particular task. Others assert that our attention spans and ability to learn have been changed and that the use of media devices has become essential to many people's daily lives and indeed the impulse to use technology is harder to resist than unwanted urges for eating, alcohol or sex.

This book seeks to portray the see-saw like relationship that we have with technology and how that relationship impacts upon our lived lives. Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives that cross traditional subject boundaries we examine the ways in which we both react to and are, to an extent, shaped by the technologies we interact with and how we construct the relationships with others that we facilitate via the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) be it as discreet online only relationships or the blending of ICTs enabled communication with real life co present interactions.

1 The Internet through the ages

William H. Dutton and Bianca C. Reisdorf¹

Introduction

In the 21st century, the Internet has become nearly ubiquitous in highly advanced societies, such as North America or Western Europe, where the majority of individuals and households are online. However, not all online connectivity is equal, and studies have shown repeatedly that uptake rates and how much people use the Internet once they are online are highly dependent on a number of social and economic factors, with one of the most important being the age of the individual (Blank and Dutton 2012; Reisdorf 2011; Van Deursen and Van Dijk 2014; Zillien and Hargittai 2009). For this reason, a large number of studies in the field have focused on how different age groups – especially younger and older age groups – are using the Internet in different ways (Hargittai and Hsieh 2013; Livingstone and Helsper 2007; Van Deursen and Helsper 2015). The terms ‘digital natives’ (Helsper and Eynon 2010; Palfrey and Gasser 2013; Prensky 2001) and ‘digital immigrants’ (Prensky 2001, 2009) have been frequently used to denote the degree to which young people, who grew up surrounded by ICTs such as the Internet, are more well versed with their use than those who are older and who learned how to use the Internet later in their lives. Only recently, a so-called Internet meme² spread widely on social media that was aimed at reminding young Internet users (i.e. ‘digital natives’) to be patient with their parents (i.e. ‘digital immigrants’) when they ask questions about how to use technologies, since the parents taught their children ‘how to use a spoon’ (Pinterest 2015).

However, a growing number of studies have shown that such generalizations are overly simplified. While a larger proportion of older people are offline compared to younger people, there are dramatic variations within the younger and older age groups. Not all young people are well versed in using the Internet (Eynon and Geniets 2012), and not all older people are slow in their take-up of new Internet technologies, software, and gadgets (Dutton and Blank 2012). Other aspects often, though not always, related to age, such as income, education, and urban–rural location, also need to be considered (Farrington et al. 2015). Moreover, age itself is an indicator of multiple aspects of one’s life, such as a stage of life as well as an age cohort.

Outline of this chapter

In this chapter, we will first describe the influence of age on access to and use of the Internet, drawing on descriptive and multivariate analyses from surveys conducted in Britain mainly through the results of the Oxford Internet Surveys (OxIS),³ and in the United States, primarily through the findings of the Pew Internet & American Life Project.⁴ We then examine the intersections of various aspects of age, including physiological ageing, age cohorts, and life stage, asking which of these factors is predominantly driving the importance of age in Internet use.

We argue that all dimensions of age are additive and therefore need to be jointly considered to draw a complete picture of why age and Internet use are so closely intertwined. We then move to a discussion of the inherent dynamics of age and the Internet. Will the ‘digital natives’ of 2015 be on the leading edge of Internet use in 2025? Probably not. In addition, the Internet and related information and communication technologies (ICTs) are also rapidly and constantly evolving, with new gadgets and applications being invented at a pace that is difficult for any individual user to keep up with. The co-evolving changes of individual users and the Internet create a dynamic interaction that is likely to alter over time. So while many people perceive a clear and settled relationship between age and Internet use, we argue that this relationship is likely to shift in the coming years and decades in ways that will make contemporary stereotypes of the ‘born digital’ generation an anachronism.

Age and Internet use: millennials, silver surfers, and refusniks

A growing body of social research has shown that age is a strong factor in describing both access to and patterns of use of the Internet. Age has emerged as a major aspect of digital divides research regarding access to the Internet and related factors, such as skills in using the Internet, that creates inequalities across individuals in society (Hargittai and Hsieh 2013). These digital inequalities are important because they often follow and reinforce other socio-economic inequalities, such as income and education. This makes them socially and economically significant, and not just a difference in whether someone decides to use a particular technology. It is sometimes a ‘choice’, but one that is socially shaped and which has social and economic consequences, as will be discussed further in the sections that follow.

The basic finding of most studies is that being older is one of the major factors related to being less likely to use the Internet. Study after study has found a strong correlation between being older and not using the Internet at all, that is someone who has never been online (Blank and Dutton 2012; Helsper and Reisdorf 2013). In Britain and the United States, when controlling for all other standard socio-demographic factors, such as education, income, or having children in the household, age is one of the strongest predictors of who is online and who is not (Blank and Dutton 2012; Zickuhr and Madden 2012). For instance, in Britain in 2013, nearly every person in school or of school age was online, while only about 60 per cent of those retired or at the age of retirement were online (Dutton and Blank 2013, p. 19).

However, this is not a constant. While a lower proportion of older people are online in many nations, they are also among the groups that are growing in their proportion of Internet users. In the United States, for example, Pew has shown a steady increase in Internet users among all age groups, including older adults and seniors (Zickuhr and Madden 2012, p. 4). Nevertheless, this growth in older Internet users does not erase the vast difference between proportions of users between age groups, with seniors still lagging behind in most nations. In 2012, Pew reported that ‘for the first time, half of adults ages 65 and older are online’ (Zickuhr and Madden 2012, p. 2). Between 2000 and 2012, the percentage of senior Internet users increased from less than 15 per cent to 53 per cent, while the proportion of Internet users aged 50 to 64 increased from 45 per cent to 77 per cent (p. 4). All other age groups had reached numbers higher than 90 per cent by 2012.

According to the latest data from the Pew surveys, 59 per cent of American citizens aged 65 years and older were online in 2013, but the proportion of Internet users decreased sharply by the age of 75 (Pew Research Center 2014). In addition, uptake of broadband access was considerably lower among adults who were 65 years of age or older, with only 47 per cent using broadband Internet services versus 70 per cent among the general adult population (pp. 1–2). These numbers dropped sharply as well with increasing age. For example, 74 per cent of 65- to 69-year-olds were online in 2013 (68 per cent among ages 70–74), and 65 per cent of them had broadband access at home (55 per cent among ages 70–74). However, these numbers decreased markedly to 47 per cent (Internet use) and 34 per cent (broadband) in the age group 75 to 79, and 37 per cent and 21 per cent respectively for US citizens aged 80 years or older (Pew Research Center 2014, p. 2).

Research in Britain arrived at similar findings, indicating a sharp drop-off in Internet use in the age group of 65 years and older (Dutton and Blank 2011, 2013). In 2013, only 39 per cent of this age group described themselves as Internet users, only 12 percentage points more than in 2005 and 14 percentage points fewer than in the United States during the same period (Dutton and Blank 2013, p. 19). In short, while older individuals are catching up with younger people in adopting the Internet and – although significantly less so – broadband access at home, they still lag behind, especially in contrast to those under the age of 30, who display the highest Internet usage rates, based on findings in both the United States and Britain.

Research has provided many explanations for the lower proportions of Internet users in the higher age groups. According to Helsper and Reisdorf (2013), older respondents were significantly less likely to mention access and the cost of Internet connections, equipment, and gadgets as reasons for not using the Internet, but instead, the older people were, the more likely they were to express a lack of interest in the Internet. More generally, a lack of interest and general attitudes towards the Internet could be major factors. In many of the most developed nations, nearly everyone who wants to be online is online (Dutton and Blank 2013). We have referred to the phenomenon of people simply choosing not to go online as ‘digital choice’ (Dutton et al. 2007).

The existence of a ‘digital choice’ does not imply that such choices are random but that attitudes towards the Internet are very significant and that these can be shaped by such factors as age and education in ways that could perpetuate or diminish general socio-economic divides. In fact, our research on what we have called ‘cultures of the Internet’ has shown that the attitudes of users are more important than demographic factors in explaining adoption and use of the Internet (Dutton and Blank 2015). Of course, these attitudes, which are in turn influencing interest in the Internet, are shaped by demographic and socio-economic factors, such as age, but attitudes are not determined by these factors, leaving room for initiatives that might shape the values and attitudes of people to adopt and use the Internet in positive ways. Looking specifically at Internet- and technology-related attitudes of Internet users and non-users, for example, Reisdorf and Groselj (forthcoming) found that strong negative or positive attitudes played as strong a role in predicting who was offline and who was online as the strongest socio-economic factors, such as education or age, which are best viewed as background factors shaping attitudes and behaviour related to the Internet.

Older people also face some more unique challenges that come with ageing. Researchers at the Pew Research Center (2014, p. 2) have not only noted barriers for older people, such as scepticism, as discussed, but also physical challenges. Clearly, as people age they might have physical limitations, such as weaker eyesight, or might find it harder to learn new things. Over the years, for example, individuals who report having disabilities are less likely to be online (Dutton and Blank 2013).

However, many seniors are online and sophisticated Internet users. Moreover, even seniors who move online at a later age find the Internet becoming a more integral part of their lives, such as becoming part of their daily routine, with many of them going online every day (Dutton and Blank 2013; Pew Research Center 2014).

But this does not negate the potential for older people to be on the wrong side of the digital divide and face the consequences of the digital inequalities that emerge across age groups. Research on digital inequalities argues that the older so-called ‘silver surfers’ tend to engage in fewer activities and stay online for shorter periods of time relative to younger Internet users (Helsper 2010). This may lead to older users missing out on many opportunities online, or what Zillien and Hargittai (2009) describe as capital-enhancing uses of the Internet, that is, activities that allow Internet users to gain economic, cultural, or social capital. Ironically, older people are among the groups most likely to benefit from online activities, such as online shopping or banking or access to governmental, health, and medical information and services, but they often fail to recognize and seize these potential advantages. Moreover, these gaps are self-reinforcing when industry tends to focus its marketing and initiatives on the younger and heavier users.

Unravelling the age explanations

Because a strong relationship is found between age and Internet use, researchers have offered up a virtual ‘dog’s breakfast’ of miscellaneous explanations and often conflate very different kinds of explanatory factors. The main problem is that age is highly correlated with many things. Social scientists often discuss this as ‘block-booking’ from the tradition of movie theatres, which had to purchase a set of films even if they only wanted to show a particular subset. The films could not be separated, as they were ‘block-booked’ by the production and distribution companies.

Likewise, it is impossible to entirely disaggregate all the changes that come with age, but there are at least four distinct but general explanations for a relationship between age and the use of ICTs, such as the Internet, which are closely related to studies of ageing more generally (Hsu, Lew-Ting and Wu 2001; Palmore 1978; Riley 1971; Szeto 2005). These will be referenced here as ageing, cohort, life stage, and design explanations.⁵

1. 1 Ageing, focused on physical or physiological changes that come with ageing, such as diminished eyesight or finger agility, which is useful, for example, for texting;
2. 2 Cohort effects, referring to the technology that was dominant when one was growing up and beginning to use media, whether one grew up with radio, television, a personal computer, the Internet, or smartphones;
3. 3 Life stage effects, shaped by the demands placed on individuals at different stages of their lives, from being a child to a student to having a particular career or being in retirement.
4. 4 Design, relating to the way technologies are designed that might disadvantage older individuals or be targeted towards the young.

Given these different aspects of ageing, it is not very useful to say that being older per se is the key factor influencing Internet engagement. As Czaja and Lee (2007, p. 344) put it: ‘[O]ne cannot draw conclusions on age-technology interaction on the basis of chronological age alone’. What is it about ageing that shapes Internet use?

Physical changes with age

Physical ageing, as one aspect of age, has an influence on a number of cognitive skills, including an increasing difficulty in learning new skills and remembering and recalling new information related to these new skills (Czaja and Lee 2007). This may include seemingly simple tasks, such as using a web browser or logging into an email account, and remembering passwords, and it will include learning how to handle new software, such as social media, smartphone applications, and others. In addition, physical barriers, such as deteriorating vision or problems with arthritis and other diseases affecting finger dexterity, may play a role in preventing older people from using the Internet at the same intensity or agility as younger people, such as in multi-tasking.

However, newer technologies, such as tablets, may be an opportunity to address some of these issues, as we are moving towards more ‘intuitive’ touchscreen technologies, which allow setting bigger icons on these screens, and the use of fickle gadgets, such as physical keyboards and a mouse, may become obsolete in the future (Ofcom 2014). In fact, Pew’s latest report on seniors and their use of technologies showed that older respondents were more likely to own tablets than smartphones, possibly as tablets are bigger and easier to handle than the small smartphone screens (Pew Research Center 2014). Nonetheless, all Internet-enabled gadgets have a lower uptake rate among older age groups than younger age groups (Zickuhr and Madden 2012), which may be related in large par...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Introduction: Digital Media Usage Across the Life Course
• 1 The Internet through the ages
• 2 Singularity: a double bind?
• 3 Citizenship in the virtual public sphere: reasonableness as a modus vivendi for life online
• 4 Birth through the digital womb: visualizing prenatal life online
• 5 Digital by default: growing into your digital footprint
• 6 “That’s so unfair!”: navigating the teenage online experience
• 7 Living social: comparing social media use in your 20s and 30s
• 8 Blurring boundaries: social media and boundary maintenance at midlife
• 9 Retrospective narratives about life with anxiety: considering the role of the Internet for sufferers across the life course
• 10 Older adults and social media: foreshadowing challenges of the digital future?
• 11 Googling grannies: how technology use can improve health and well-being in aging populations
• 12 Physical death in the digital age
• 13 On deathcasting: alone together on the edge of death
• Index