Social & Community

A New Frontier for Aging: The Internet

Listen to Dr. Parker's discussion

When's the last time you saw a TV commercial for new computers that featured a group of elderly people signing on to the Internet to check their e-mail?

Just because those scenes are somewhat rare in the media doesn't mean they're far-fetched, says Dr. Michael Parker, who works in the areas of gerontology, geriatrics and palliative care with the UAB Center for Aging. In fact, according to Parker, the sight of aging Internet users can—and should—be an increasingly common sight, in years to come:

"All of the research about lifelong learning is very encouraging," Parker says. "In learning about computers, older adults have slower reaction times, but once they get the basic concepts, they can perform on an equal level with younger people.

"But the training has to be sensitized to that fact. You don't want to put a bunch of younger people who are computer literate in the same room with elderly people who have never been on a computer, because it's quite intimidating. So you want to allow for a kind of patient, loving atmosphere in which computer training could be provided.

"And then once somebody is computer literate, the Internet becomes a way they can stay in touch with family, and stay networked. It's a marvelous opportunity. By incorporating computer training into their outreach programs, churches, for instance, can change the context for older persons, about the computer—change their attitudes, their feelings of negativity, in much the same way the church can help change attitudes about care-giving.

"My own church, for instance—a fairly large Presbyterian church in Tuscaloosa—has a very vibrant computer ministry in which the elderly participate in training. There's a wonderful opportunity, today, for that kind of educational experience.

"Lifelong learning, of all types, is just absolutely essential. But all of us grew up in a society that thinks in age-graded ways. For example, we think about our early years as being a period of time in which we're educated. Then after we're educated, we go to work. And after we work, we retire.

"What I would like to suggest is that those are really false concepts. They don't really apply in any kind of accurate way to what we experience.

"Education is really life-long. And work is really life-long. If we think about an elderly person caring for their mate who has Alzheimer's disease, I can't think of any work that's harder and more challenging than that. And yet the IRS doesn't acknowledge that, in any kind of profound way. It doesn't enter in to our employment statistics, the way we calculate them in this country. And yet it meets a need that couldn't be met in any other way.

"So work is lifelong, and I really think the idea of retirement is a false notion. We need to think of leisure as being an ongoing part of life. Because we need balance, there should always be a ‘retirement component' in the way we think and live. And so having some sort of recreation to provide that balance is, again, a lifelong concept. It doesn't belong in these age-graded categories, of how we think about life."

A downloadable audio file of Dr. Parker's article is also available.