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Comment by _rpd | Hacker News Reader

tl;dr: Internet non-adoption is linked to a number of demographic variables, but is strongly connected to age – with older Americans continuing to be one of the least likely groups to use the internet. Today, 25% of adults ages 65 and older report never going online.

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I have several very elderly relatives and many of them never use a computer or internet. So I'm not too surprised by this.

However, my grandpa is 93 and uses his iPad, goes on Facebook, and watches YouTube all day. So it's definitely not all of them.

Do they have a smart phone and realize that every app is online?

That face time is online?

This study seems flawed if it didn't get very specific because there's not a small number of tech illiterate ppl who don't even realize they're online when they are....

Don’t read “65+“ as “65”.

The 65+ category also includes everyone 80+, for example. There’s plenty of old people still alive who have trouble with operating technology a lot more simple than a cell phone.

None of my aging relatives have a smart phone, my parents struggle with a dumb mobile phone.

This was also my thought. I find it hard to believe that 65+ years old don't use navigation on their phone when driving, or googling even basic information.

Mom has seen GPS nav on my phone, but she’s too frugal to let me get her one. She has a feature phone that’s only on when she leaves home.

I got her a cheap laptop and she does have cable internet (and knows the difference between being online and having an outage), so she’s pretty much where I was in 2005 when 3G was almost unusable. I can imagine her getting by without them, just like they did in 1990.

Is it a coincidence that 25% is also in the same ballpark as the percent of people 65+ that don’t have a drivers license?

But besides that, someone who got their license before 1972 would have spent almost 3/4 of their life driving without GPS.

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