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Abstract
The elderly are generally “out of the loop” when it comes to texting and other new technologies. On the one hand, the elderly do not often send text messages and thus signal their ability and willingness to use the medium. On the other hand, stereotyping by the younger users perhaps inhibits them from sending text messages to the elderly. Is the non-use of texting by the elderly because of self-exclusion or lack of exposure or both? Should this be of concern to us?
Notes
1. The sample included 1,000 randomly selected individuals form Norway over the age of 13 years. It was gathered as part of a broader telephone based survey that focused on mobile communication in December 2005. The survey was conducted by Telenor.
2. The data shows that when considering the 20-year-old, 60.2% of all people said that they would select sending and SMS as opposed to calling in order to tell someone that they would be delayed for a meeting. Only 38% said that they would send SMS to a 40-year-old, 12.5% to a 60-year-old, and finally less than 3% would send an SMS to an 80-year-old.
3. Horgan reports that in 2007 in the United States 60% of 18 to 29-year-olds who own a mobile phone send text messages on a daily basis; only 2% of those who are over 65 report the same thing (2008). Material from Norway shows about the same use pattern (CitationLing, 2007b).
4. The elderly are less likely to have a “current” handset. Where the mean age of a handset for those under 24 is just under 1 year, it is close to 6 years for those who are over 65 (F(6, 980) = 19.76, significance < .001). Clearly, many of those who are under 24 may be using their first handset and thus have had less time to be a user. However, even in the case of users between the ages of 19 and 24, the handset has been in use for only 11.8 months.
5. Mastery of the technology is another area where there are age-based differences. The questionnaire contained a battery of five questions asking as to whether an individual could use basic functions (sending SMS) and more advanced functions (setting up the phone to send MMS or e-mail). The Cronbach's alpha for this scale was .648. Where the mean score for those less than 25 years of age was just over 4 on this 5-point scale, it was just over 2 for those over 65 (F(6, 980) = 47.38, significance < .001)
6. Those between 19 and 64 use a mean of 357 Kroner per month on mobile telephony, while those who are over 65 use only 195 Kroner (F(6, 718) = 10.35, significance < .001).
7. Elderly persons are likely to have a more tentative relationship to their telephone as evidenced by the relatively large number of persons over 65 who have a pre-paid subscription (45% for those over 65 and only 19% for those between 25 and 65) (chi-squared (12) = 111.81, significance < .001); 45% of those between 13 and 18 had a prepaid subscription. This is usually based on the interaction between parents and children. A mobile telephone subscription is used as a type of object lesson in economic responsibility by parents in this situation (CitationLing, 2004).
8. Use of traditional landline telephony has a quite different pattern from mobile-based communication. In that case, almost 37% of the youngest teens (13- to 15-year-olds) use landline telephony on a daily basis. From that point, the next two age groups show a reduction in the percent using this form of mediation. Indeed, only 18% of the 20–24 year olds say that they use landline telephony on a daily basis. By way of explanation, this is a nomadic period of life. People in this age group are either still in the education system or early in their careers. They, more than other persons, move from one apartment to another. They are not as often tied to the home with children and family, so the mobile telephone is a logical type of telephony service. From this point, the level of daily use goes up to about 40% for the older age groups. It is perhaps no surprise that landline telephony is the most used form of interpersonal mediation among those over 54. It is a familiar alternative and it is also an alternative that is useful for those persons who have a more home-based radius of interaction.
9. This is not to say that older persons will not adopt and use the mobile phone. It only describes the broader picture, not its specific application.
10. As an indicator of this, teens and young adults focused more on friends (72% of the contacts on their mobile phones), where elderly persons only reported that 54% of their contacts were friends. The elderly reported more family contacts on their phones (33%), as opposed to 12% among the teens/young adults. The elderly also had fewer contacts in general.
11. A similar discussion is often used vis-à-vis children.
12. This difference is significant at the .07 level, i.e., not strongly significant but with a tendency in that direction, F(1, 335) = 3.308, significance = .07. Interestingly, the elderly used more time in total on all forms of telephony (30.2 minutes as opposed to 24.9 minutes per day), F(1, 1051) = 3.118, significance = .078. There was not a significant difference in the time used talking via the mobile phone, 8.6 minutes for the elderly vs. 12.8 for the other persons.
13. F(1, 1119) = 6.353, significance = .012.
14. F(1, 1116) = 6.206, significance = .013.
15. Haddon and Silverstone also describe the same with regard to the adoption of, for example, the cordless telephone in the mid 1980s.
16. The qualitative data presented here were gathered in focus groups by the author.