Older Americans are Increasingly Online - Horowitz

Older Americans are Increasingly Online - Horowitz

Over the past ten years or so, there has been a large-scale expansion in the percentage of older Americans who are online, are users of social media, and employ other digital technologies, reports Pew Research Group. While Americans 65 and over still lag well behind younger adults in digital use, the gap has significantly narrowed and is likely to continue to close.

Today, 3-out-of-4 Americans 65 and older say they use the internet. This cuts the differential in internet use between the oldest cohort of American adults and the youngest group segmented out by Pew, those between 18 and 29, in more than half. Similarly, nearly half of Americans 65 and over now use social media-a four-fold increase in social media use by older Americans over the past decade.

Other sites and apps are also gaining traction with older Americans. The most used site among all age groups, YouTube, for example, now attracts 49% of those 65 and older, an increase of 11% over the past two years alone

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Along the same lines, more than 6-in-10 of those 65 and older now own a smartphone, documents Pew. This is a marked increase in smartphone use by seniors since 2012. Older Americans are catching up with the nearly universal use of smartphones by younger Americans.

Additionally, the role of online influencers is no longer monopolized by younger Americans.  Older Americans are increasingly employing digital technologies to emerge as influencers with outsized social media presences.   Now 75 years old, Joan McDonald, for example, has attracted 1.5 million Instagram followers through a series of posts telling the story of her inspiring transformation from an overweight 70-year-old with serious health problems to an apostle of fitness and weightlifting.  This has led to “a partnership with Women’s Best fitness brand, and features in multiple magazines and websites, including Fox News, NY Post, and Shape Magazine,” according to Seniorsguide.

Another example is 78-year old Lagettta Wayne (@msgrandmasgarden) who shares homespun recipes via TikTok, among other social media sites. Taken together, “her posts have over a million combined likes and over 131,800 followers,” reports Seniorsguide.

Generally speaking, it is still the case that older Americans who use the internet are online less frequently than younger adults. But the growing use of digital technologies by older Americans is another sign that the movement of news, entertainment, and communications online will continue apace—and will not be reversed. 

This means that we will all have to do the hard work of developing norms of behavior and rules of the road online that promote civil interactions and conversation and a fidelity to facts and truth, so we can realize the potential for the development of knowledge, understanding and spirited democratic discourse online tools offer without the all too prevalent divisive downsides of unpersuasive name-calling and attacks that people would refrain from if they were communicating in person.

It is up to all of us to create a better online public square—because like it or not—it is here to stay. That is the important work ahead.

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.