For those here in Chicago and in other cities who are adding senior teams
to your groups, here's a informative article on seniors and computers.
kelly
from the New York times
June 15, 1998
Elderly Show a Lively Interest in the World of Cyberspace
By JANE GROSS
OSSINING, N.Y. -- Pat Garbarini has no answering machine. Why
should she? Anyone who wants her will call back. Nor does she
bother with cash machines. What for? She likes the chitchat with
the teller, and can't imagine needing money at night.
But do not call Mrs. Garbarini, who is 81, a technophobe. She
struggled to the senior center here, just two weeks after having
hip replacement surgery, to take a computer course. And even before
the course ended she bought a computer and printer, turning her
scarred, leather-topped desk into a workstation for bookkeeping,
writing letters and electronic mail and surfing the Internet.
"I want to do all of it," Mrs. Garbarini said with a resolve that
seems characteristic of a the small but growing number of elderly
men and women interested in the new technology.
They are often slowed by the inevitable infirmities of age, and the
jargon of computing might as well be Sanskrit. Yet Americans old
enough to be the typical hacker's grandparents are clamoring for
computer instruction at community centers, colleges and libraries
across America. Classes fill as quickly as they are posted,
spillover sections are created, and still the waiting lists are
long.
A shopping mall in Virginia, hospitals in North Carolina and
Illinois, community colleges in Missouri and Hawaii, universities
in Texas and California -- even cruise ships to Alaska and the
Caribbean -- have got into the act and are conducting computer
classes. Web sites for the elderly proliferate, with chat rooms
where they discuss health, travel and finances.
Modern Maturity magazine plans its first technology issue in
November. And retirement communities in Akron, Ohio, looking for a
competitive edge and preparing for the next generation of
residents, are installing high-speed modems.
Mrs. Garbarini's curiosity is typical. After surgery, a less
intrepid soul would have waited for the fall session. But she was
determined to attend, even if it meant using a walker and accepting
a ride from her granddaughter.
"I didn't want to wait," Mrs. Garbarini said recently. "Who can
tell how much longer I have?"
Those who teach such classes and those who have researched the
habits of the elderly say their interest in computers is motivated
by a desire to keep in touch, via e-mail, with far-flung children
and grandchildren.
But the students themselves, at several classes at the senior
center here and another at Ossining High School, offer a less
practical and more existential reason: they do not want the world
to pass them by. When the conversation turns to Microsoft's
anti-competitive practices or the risk to children from
pornographic Web sites, they want to understand and contribute.
"When people talk, I want to know what they're talking about," said
Carmela Trapasso, 83. "Otherwise, you're lost in your own world,
one of those people saying, 'We used to do this and we used to do
that."'
Alyane Simpson, 74, agreed. "My feeling is, it's all becoming more
and more important," she said. If that's the case, how can you be
out of it?"
The primary purveyor of computer classes for the elderly is
SeniorNet, a San Francisco nonprofit organization that began, in
1986, as a research project by Mary Furlong, a professor of
educational technology at the University of San Francisco and the
author of the book "Computers for Kids Over Sixty." Ms. Furlong,
who has since started Third Age Media, a Web site for older adults,
toured retirement communities with a computer in the trunk of her
car. She found the residents both receptive and capable.
Thus began a venture, funded by International Business Machines and
other corporations, to teach technology to the elderly, using
instructors of a similar age. It was begun with five teaching sites
and has since grown to 126, serving 100,000 pupils in 35 states.
Despite its origins in computer-savvy California, SeniorNet has had
its greatest success on the East Coast, where IBM, based here in
Westchester County, contributes not only money and machinery but
retirees to serve as volunteer teachers.
SeniorNet has sites on the World Wide Web (www.seniornet.org) and
America Online (keyword: SeniorNet), with an array of chat rooms.
It charges for its classes -- a $35 membership fee and an
additional $30 for each seven-session course. The students at the
Ossining senior center, in a computer lab next to a gymnasium where
line dancers worked up a sweat to "Elvira," were satisfied they got
their money's worth.
Some had already taken a free class at the high school here, in
which 20 students were sent surfing the Internet by a young teacher
before they even knew how to turn on the machine. The class
frustrated more than it informed because it was too large and moved
too quickly, some of the alumni said. Even those who managed to use
their Web browsers could rarely find what they were looking for.
One man, the most facile in the class, found his way to The Florida
Living Network. His goal was to look for real estate in Daytona
Beach, but the map that linked him to local Web pages did not
include that city.
The two SeniorNet classes in Ossining, by contrast, have just six
pupils each, a teacher of comparable age and two assistants who
tour the room making sure everyone understands what is going on.
Ossining's SeniorNet made its debut in January with just one
section. Now, because of demand, there are two going at any given
time. The material is presented slowly and clearly, beginning at
the very beginning -- with a keyboard that few are familiar with
because they never learned to type.
"You wrote longhand or you had your girlfriend do it," said one
student, John Connell, whose skill level could best be described as
hunt and peck.
Across the room, Bea Polivnick, 76, smiled at her husband, Sid. "I
taught myself to type so I could help him," Mrs. Polivnick said, as
he banged the keyboard with two fingers.
In the early sessions, students are taught how to use the enter and
escape keys and the directional arrows, how to insert and remove a
floppy disk, how to maximize and minimize what is on the screen and
how to change a font size or slow the speed of the mouse. Since
facility with the mouse is a common problem, students are
encouraged to play computer solitaire, which provides an
entertaining way to practice how to point, drag and click.
By the time the course is complete, they can write a letter, locate
an address on a CD-ROM map, sort a list of friends and relatives by
birth date and find Web sites about vacations, mutual funds or
family genealogy. Some read out-of-town newspapers on line. Others
make electronic greeting cards or calculate principal and interest
on a mortgage worksheet.
"It's a whole new world," Mrs. Polivnik said. "And it's a wonderful
exercise for the brain."
By the end of her seven sessions, Mrs. Garbarini had chosen a
mail-order Gateway computer. Anne Kenny, 65, and her husband,
Steve, 67, bought an ergonomically correct desk and were
researching computers. But Mrs. Simpson had topped them all. Even
before her classes began she had bought a powerful 300 megahertz
machine by Hewlett-Packard and was impatient to learn computer
graphics.
Signs of a growing interest in cyberspace on the part of people
over 65 suggest that market researchers are a bit behind the curve
when they say that as people grow older they are less likely to
hitch a ride on the information superhighway. The most recent data
are at least a year old and are as outdated as last year's
software, according to computer consultants.
The latest survey, conducted for the American Association of
Retired Persons, showed that 63 percent of adults between the ages
of 40 and 49 had used a computer in the last month, compared with
42 percent between the ages of 50 and 64 and a mere 13 percent over
65.
That survey, based on data compiled between 1995 and 1997, found a
comparably precipitous drop-off after the age of 65 in computer
ownership and Internet use. Just 15 percent of that age group said
they owned computers, compared with a third of those between 50 and
64 and half of those between 40 and 49. And 1 percent said they
used the Internet, compared with 8 percent of 50-to-64-year olds
and 14 percent of those between 40 and 49.
But in the Ossining classes there were plenty of enthusiasts,
already concerned about sharing online time with a
computer-literate spouse or alienating one who wasn't.
"Once you get a computer, what else do you have time to do?"
Polivnik said.
"Ask my wife," said Mike Negrelli, the instructor, using the
hen-pecked cadence of the late Henny Youngman.
Leroy Smith, 75, a retired prison guard at Sing Sing, had a final
thought as he stood on the brink of becoming a full-fledged techie.
"Forget about fishing," he said.
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
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