Tech adoption grows for older adults -- why?

In 2019, Tech adoption changes -- some.  It’s known as the Amazon effect. As brick-and-mortar based businesses dwindle in favor of online, access to smartphone and broadband are becoming the enablers of information flow to older adults.  Pew Research helps us understand who, what, and possibly why people buy and own technology. Non-users, particularly broadband, are thus on one side of the so-called digital divide.  The latest Mobile Technology and Home Broadband 2019 report reveals a change in the role of smartphones, particularly as a sole device for connecting to the Internet – 37% of responders to this year’s survey go online primarily using a smartphone, with 58% of 18-29-year-olds saying they mostly go online that way, though that number dropped to 15% for the 65+.   

• Smartphone adoption moves up for the oldest.  According to the commentary in the Pew report, while 59% of the 65-75 are smartphone owners, the new number was 40% for the 75+, which had an ownership rate of 31% (age 75-79), last surveyed in 2017, when 17% of the 80+ had them.  Though the influence of education and income factors for the 75+ were not included, assumptions are straightforward – higher income and education drive up adoption.   No kidding, given how high smartphone prices have become – and how they got all the way to $2000. And those prices do not include a monthly data plan.
• Speculating on why smartphone adoption for older adults is up?  According to this Verizon store display, there are 6 flip phones left in the menu.  AT&T also has six (at the bottom of the phone selections).  A new marketing ploy for flip phones – avoid notification overload – seems aimed at the inundated Facebook, Twitter recipients – and suggests having a flip phone in addition to a smartphone.  But anyway, with few flip phones to buy any more, it is no surprise that older adult smartphone adoption has grown.
• Home broadband – that enabler of streaming – is also up to 59% of the 65+.  Broadband adoption, not surprising given the average cost, ironically in a country were 145 million people do not have access to a low-priced plan. At a nationwide average of $60/month, 44% of lower income responders do not have home broadband. For the 41% of the 65+ that do not, likely price was a factor.

What’s does growing adoption mean in practice? Perhaps wireless broadband in public places like restaurants has become so good, that bringing your own device is enough for many who do not have broadband at home.  For others, perhaps they have it at work or at the home of a family member.  As smartphone prices have climbed at the high end, upgrade intervals are approaching 3 years and leaving phone-centric companies like Apple talking up services as the replacement revenue stream for a 30% recent drop in iPhone sales (8% drop for Samsung). But other factors could be at play as well for seniors – well-publicized online scams and fraud, well-publicized surveys that show older adults as sharers of fake news, and the need for better training for users trying to protect their identity and privacy.

category tags: 

smartphones, computers, internet and social networking

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/tech-adoption-grows-older-adults-why

Ten Years – Technology for Older Adults – 2009-2019

Look back to remind us where we are.  Ten years ago, the tech product choices designed for older adults were few and rudimentary. The intent was simplification of the basics for the tech-reluctant – sending email, looking at information online.  As an analyst migrating from the IT industry, it was startling how limited the capabilities of the offerings Presto the Printing Mailbox (used, eBay), Celery (printing mailbox – gone), Mailbug (device to send-receive email – still on Amazon), and Big Screen Live (browser for seniors - gone).  According to an AARP Healthy@Home report from 2008, the only home tech device that had any level of awareness (91% of responders) was Personal Emergency Response Systems (PERS).

How has the context changed? There were 39 million older adults aged 65+ in 2009 -- today there are nearly 55 million.  Assisted living costs averaged $36K per year, today they average $48K.  Prospective caregiver population was projected to be scarce by 2020.  Today, the shortage of workers for assisted living and home care is a crisis.   In 2009, adult children wanted their parents to be online or at least get email.  Today, to a large degree (more than two-thirds), of their parents are online.  In fact, a greater percentage of the oldest (the real seniors) could be counted if a representative population was actually surveyed. Sadly, it appears that only Link·age surveys tech ownership of the oldest, but that only encompasses their own constituency.

Consider the emerging general consumer technology market.  Google’s IPO was in 2004 and Facebook (coincidentally) emerged that year. Then the iPhone emerged in 2007, along with the now-declining Fitbit. Telehealth got its first big workout with veterans in 2007.  By the time of New Year’s Day in 2009, a handful of companies had already begun to offer sensor-based home monitoring – QuietCare (eventually becoming Care Innovations), Healthsense (acquired by GreatCall), GrandCare, WellAware (acquired by Healthsense), and a bit later, BeClose (folded into Alarm.com Wellness). Was this just too early for the home monitoring category? Probably. Or was it just too murky (and pricey) compared to the PERS market?

Compare to today.  So much change -- think about the impact of Voice First technologies. And optimism about growth, if the CTA 2019 Active Aging forecast of $29.8 billion by 2022 rings true. New startups are launching in home monitoring and fall detection – incorporating AI/video images, sensors, radar, motion and predictive analytics. But are innovators, particularly those focused on selling to the coveted senior living market, still running ahead of the awareness and tolerance of older adults, families and caregivers, not to mention the senior living industry?  Consider the penetration of technologies in senior living – if this 2017 survey is representative, it’s surprisingly low, for example in resident monitoring.  The Leading Age/CAST survey was not all that encouraging either. Finally, a new and unpleasant context has emerged – misuse, abuse of information about and for seniors, senior fraud, and the failure of background checking by trusted sources. 

Slow down, you move too fast.  Move fast and break things – that was once Facebook’s motto. Maybe not such a good idea any more – maybe today’s motto should be think first. Especially about the implications of an entirely ad-driven business model, free to the ‘user’ aka the product.   And ‘don’t be evil’ has been dropped from Google’s code of conduct – in time for 2019’s Justice Department anti-trust efforts to begin.

category tags: 

IoT and home monitoring, PERS, social media, cell phones, smartphones

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/ten-years-technology-older-adults-2009-2019

Five Health and Aging Tech Posts from May 2019

What does it mean when offerings and consumers aren’t aligned?  For older consumers and their families, the technology market and senior housing industry are two cases in point.  Consider the slower-growing 8(8% occupied) senior housing industry – where in ten years, 81% of couples will not be able to afford the $60,000 average cost of assisted living (a number that does not reflect higher cost memory care). Or mull over the technology industry, which is releasing new versions of every category faster than you can Google them, filling voids like adding mouse for the iPad.  Why did it not have a mouse in the first place?  Oh, yes, and it is an accessibility feature.  Still no headphone jack on the phone.  Or creating a folding phone (without much testing) with a screen that breaks within days of announcement. Did anyone ask for a phone that folds?  So in that vein, here are five blog posts, mostly rants, from May, 2019:

Older adult finances and future senior housing options are out of sync. A sad tale - reading the lament about the numbers of seniors who will not be able to afford assisted living in 10 years. The report is from NIC – the National Investment Center that provides research to the senior living industry. The upshot – 54% will be unable to pay the $60,000 average annual cost of assisted living (make that $93,000 in Washington DC), even if they sell their home. If one member of a couple is still living in the home, the number rises to 81%.  According to the study, 60% of the population aged 75+ will have mobility, cognitive impairment or chronic conditions that would characterize them as good candidates for assisted living services and settings – but will not have the savings to enable them to move in. Read more.

Five Virtual Reality technology offerings for older adults in 2019.In 2017, it was clear that virtual reality technology had evolved beyond the point of experiments and was having a number of limited introductions into the world of older adults, including senior living environments (Rendever) as well as pain mitigation (FirstHand). Virtual reality has made its way into the 'future of healthcare delivery' consulting, as firms like Care Innovations and Deloitte publish their how-to white papers.  For 2019, here are five VR offerings that specifically note benefits for older adults.  Read more.

Technology, Bad Design, and the Kitchen Pliers.  If you were lucky enough to read Don Norman’s rant in Fast Company, you must agree with his view of design and its mismatch with the needs of the elderly. You would agree with Don that today’s designs fail all people, not just the elderly.  Because you too have a pliers or wrench in your kitchen to twist tops off bottles and jars. You puzzle at how best to position a knife to release the suction on jars. You have a slippery front door handle that a person with hand arthritis could never open. You have a not-so-universal TV remote with 45 buttons on it, the smallest of which is ‘Mute’.  If you have another box, it has a remote, and perhaps another for stereo equipment and an stylishly confusing one for Apple TV. And that’s just one room. You frequently want to print from a device to a network printer, which requires a network, which requires a router, which needs an upgrade. Read more.

Technology non-adoption of tech by the oldest—it’s a bug, not a feature. Not adopting tech -- it's not okay. Lacking access to smartphones, Internet, in-home broadband/WiFi cuts oldest out of access to modern telehealth, communication and engagement, in-home sensors, outside-home GPS, fall detection, and device integration with smartphones. The issue of non-adoption, particularly as more health services move online, will become increasingly vexing for service providers of all types. Surveying of the oldest has fallen out of favor, though Link-ageConnect persists, thankfully -- see their 2019 report. But over the years much has been opined about the reasons – so here is some more opining. Read more.

Linkage – A rare survey of technology ownership among the oldest. When there’s nothing else to buy. Funny about technology ownership among the oldest – generally there is no way to know whether they own any or if would they buy it. Neither Pew (in 2018) nor AARP (2019 technology ownership) broke out upper age ranges. So Link·age Connect is an outlier that asks ownership questions and documents age breakdowns of responders, half of whom were age 75+. This 2019 Technology Survey of Older Adults Age 55-100, conducted online, notes that 80% of respondents (45% of whom live in senior-oriented communities/housing) have smartphones. At this point, if the mobile phone breaks, what’s the store rep going to promote, and it doesn’t matter which store? While they carry flip/feature phones, an iPhone or an Android phone can be used just like a flip phone. More than 50% of respondents have smart TVs (yes, that’s nearly all you can buy these days). Read more.

 

category tags: 

VR/AR technology, cell phones, smartphones, tablets

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/five-health-and-aging-tech-posts-may-2019