ShareThisBy HELEN MALANI
Friday, October 27, 2006
As I was walking though my local Apple Store I did a double take. No, it wasn't the new iPod that caught my eye, but a customer getting a lesson on how to use her new laptop.
This is rather unremarkable in itself, except that she was my grandmother's age and I just never imagined my grandmother buying a laptop. But shame on me for being surprised because once I started digging for technology trends among seniors I discovered there are now 14 million of them online according to a 2006 Harris Poll.
And why not? As with any other age group that has jumped on the Internet, it can be a great source of freedom, information and community for seniors. As the baby boomer generation meets its mid-50s and approaches its 60s, this segment of the population is growing rapidly. For those who retired in the days before a workplace PC was ubiquitous, it may be difficult to let down their firewalls to embrace gigabyte gadgetry. But like learning to walk, small steps lead to extraordinary discoveries.
If you're a senior and reading this column online then you already know all the benefits of being online. If however, you're reading this in your local print newspaper, well hello there, I'm talking to you!
Many of today's seniors enjoy active lifestyles, as exhibited by their higher than average likelihood to visit travel sites. They are 26 percent more likely to visit sites in the travel-airlines category, and 25 percent more likely to visit travel-ground-cruise sites.
Additionally, online seniors' are more prone to engage in online trading (32 percent more likely to visit business/finance-online trading sites) and are 23 percent more likely than the norm to visit hobbies/lifestyle-genealogy sites.
For less than $1,000 an entry level laptop or desktop computer will serve the needs for most seniors who want to learn to surf the net. Many community colleges, senior citizen centers and local libraries offer classes for those new-to-computers and the net. Or you can visit www.seniornet.org to find a local class aimed specifically at seniors. Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, SeniorNet.org is committed to opening the tech window to seniors and it has lots of chat rooms _ the Internet version of chatting with neighbors over the fence _ on every imaginable topic of interest.
Once the window to the Internet is open, seniors can make the most of their retirement dollars by shopping for travel bargains to see grandkids or take the journey of a lifetime. For discount air and hotel fares, www.expedia.com is an easy site to navigate; while a review site like www.tripadvisor.com is great to check out what hotels others recommend or not, before you spend your money.
Another area of interest for seniors is researching health issues. Other than speaking with their doctors, seniors increasingly turn to the Internet to research health issues. A first stop should be www.aarp.org and another clearing house for news including medical headlines is www.seniorjournal.com .
E-mail, your own personal electronic post office, allows seniors to be in touch with relatives across the miles. A foolproof point and click easy to use digital camera, like those from Canon or Kodak, will be your next stop so you can document and share memories in the information age. Your next step may be to consider doing banking, bill paying and managing retirement accounts online. It's safe and convenient. For those who may not be as mobile any longer, it's a way to retain power over precious assets.
Helen Malani is the chief shopping expert for Shopzilla.com, an E.W. Scripps company, and the largest comparison shopping search engine on the Web. For more columns visit www.scrippsnews.com.
