Yoohoo, Mommies!

I admit it. I love my computer. It not only allows me to keep on learning and staying mentally alert, it gave me the opportunity to meet great new friends and visit with people on line in places I could never have dreamed I would go. How great is that????

Then how good is it to be able to share in the joy on my nephew's face when he is sitting with his father and his new Samoyed puppy, Nanook. I would have waited weeks to see that picture with snail mail, provided the young, extremely busy parents took the time away from their very active lives to mail it to me.

Yep, I depend a great deal on the computer for my entertainment. Perhaps it's true that I know more people who are interested in newfangled devices and technology. It just so happens that in my rather large group of acquaintances I can count on my fingers those who don't at least use a computer or WebTV for e-mail. Even those whose families live nearby. I never thought we were unique but maybe we are.

Lucille

Having real people to talk to doesn't mean that one can't be on the internet. Being on the internet doesn't mean that one doesn't have real people to talk to and has to rely on internet friends. You're setting up a false dichotomy here.

Elizabeth

Yes, it is particularly apt for her. I worked for a drug wholesaler (perfectly legal, government controlled supplying drugs to all the NS drug stores) about 1972 and we had a computer room with an IBM in it.

They produced all the addresses for specific drug stores where we wanted to target our advertising for specific items, really the way of the future. I suppose, in retrospect, it was but looks dumb now!

Thank goodness my former boss a professional photographer (with whom I had a deadly argument) called me one day to return to service with him at a considerably larger amount of pay and I was out of there :) There was something almost indecent to be sitting at a desk with my current boss standing right there, speaking to the former boss lol.

Must be why I am a dull old senior these days lol

Pot, kettle, black, baby! Got some of your own arguing style handed back to you and you don't like it much, do you?

Elizabeth

A stuffed Kermit that belonged to someone very near and dear to me sits on top of my kitchen cabinets wrapped around a pot of fake philodendron. I do believe he watches over me and keeps things right in my world.

Lucille

You're right of course dahlink. Where did I meet you? Ah yes now I recall in my feeble brain, it was at the end of my drive to Vancouver and back a couple of years ago because another of my feeble friends wanted to take off too ! We seniors you know, dull as dishwater.

A very short search found these. Not scientific studied, or so it appears, but I do believe there are many more SS online than people know.

MIL was a librarian and she retired several years ago. Now she'sdoing a very detailed search for the geneology of the family. Fullblown like a scrapbook addict and Mark's brother just bought her alaptop. She'd been using the library computers, but living in upperWisconsin and winter coming and snow banks being ten feet tall up anddown the streets, he wanted her to keep up with her hobby. Just one example. My mom works, as i said, so it's not a stretch that she uses a computer.

If it doesn't electrocute me, in my case, I have Dell Complete Care so if I drop it in the bath or pool or water it with the lawn sprinkler they will replace it. I've been known to water digital cameras in the past!

Neophyte! I got my first email account in 1988 and I first posted to Usenet in 1992.

Elizabeth

35 percent of Americans over age 65 are online, according to data from April and May [2008] compiled by the Pew Internet Project at the Pew Research Center.But when you account for factors like race, wealth and education, the picture changes dramatically. "About three-quarters of white, college-educated men age over 65 use the Internet," says Susannah Fox, director of the project. (For the record, while the PRC hasn't posted a similar figure for women, for the last few years women and men have had similar overall usage stats, so one wouldn't expect the profile for women to be much different.)

Best wishes, Ericka

You'd probably get quite a charge out of it. LOL!

Elizabeth

Oh, look! You mean Karen might have been wrong after all? Imagine.

Elizabeth

I'm an old senior, typo - 1989 was my first post. Not to here. I think Ruby Scott first introduced me to rctn in about 1990. She was over at my place one day (though she was not a senior and made the comment now that I think of it that all my friends seemed to be ten years my junior) actually I think 1989 was still Boards.

Beast ! I think it would be one last time before it expired.

Now that is a sad reflection on our times.

Please point out where I used the word "stupid" or any synonym thereof. It is your word which you are putting into my mouth to get people mad at me for something I NEVER SAID.

I am becoming quite fed up with this tactic of accusing me of saying things that were not said, in hopes that no one will review the archives to determine who was really the first person who said it.

Someone who CHOOSES not to learn the same things that you have chosen to learn is not stupid, they simply have different priorities for their time.

My mother has no need to learn to send e-mail to communicate to her grandchildren (The Divine Miss Em says purrrr) or her siblings (her only brother having died in 1996). Her friends don't do e-mail, so why should she? I would rather talk to her on the phone, so I can assess reaction time, whether she's slurring words indicating a neurological problem, etc., and since I pay $30/mo for unlimited long distance, which I use to call many people (some of whom have e-mail but I'd rather hear their voice, plus it's more efficient for bouncing business ideas off each other -- even a couple of old secretaries like us can talk twice as fast as we can type, plus, my friend can wash dishes and I can knit while running our mouths, whereas typing at each other precludes us doing other productive things), it costs me no extra to talk to her on a daily basis.

I had my first email account in the early 90's but didn't know anything about Usenet till several years later. Does that make me the baby in the group??? lol

Once again, someone else's word, that seniors are "boring" being placed into my mouth in order to perpetuate an argument over something I NEVER SAID.

Wrong? How so? By my reading 35% is still a minority. It may be a bit higher than the roughly 1-in-5 in my family, but it's still not, as others have stated, a majority of seniors online and my relatives are the minority.

I have yet to see a statistic proving wrong MY statement that over 65s are the age group "least likely to have a computer". They may be making gains, but there's still not the near-100% saturation you'd see among

20-somethings. There have been statistics bandied about proving other people wrong in their assertions that most seniors use computers and my relatives are the only Luddites, but whether you go with Lucille's 22%, Cheryl's 29%, or Ericka's 35%, it is still a *minority* of seniors who are online.

And how many of those are "young seniors" as opposed to the

80-somethings I based my personal observations on? Every year, more and more of us who were using computers at work in the 1970s and 1980s age into the "over 65" category, which doesn't mean an across-the-board increase in computer literacy. The 100-year-old who was already retired in 1980 doesn't have a 10% annual increase in her computer use just because another year's worth of people crossed the line from 64 to 65-and-up.

The statistics I've seen have completely supported my statement that seniors are "least likely to have a computer". Even if they got up to

95% (which is highly likely by the time my generation gets there), the 100% generations coming behind still make them "least likely".