Though seniors (adults age 65 and older) have spent much of their lives without the technology that younger generations have grown up with, fully six in ten (60%) say they use the Internet, participating in a variety of activities such as social networking, playing games, and buying products, according to report by Forrester Research.
Among surveyed online seniors (age 65+):
- 91% use email.
- 59% have purchased products online in the previous three months.
- 49% have a Facebook account.
More than seven in ten (71%) online seniors use the Internet daily.
Seniors' device of choice is a desktop computer (76%), followed by a laptop (42%); only 4% have a tablet at home.
Moreover, a growing share of seniors own a cell phone, according to separate research from Pew.
Nearly seven in ten (69%) adults ages 65 and older say they have a mobile phone, up from 57% in May 2010. Even among those now age 76 and older, 56% report owning a cell phone of some kind, up from 47% of that generation in 2010.
Roughly one in ten American seniors now own an e-reader (11%), while slightly fewer (8%) own a tablet device, Pew found.
About the data: For the North American Technographics Benchmark Survey Q2/Q3 2011 (US, Canada) Forrester conducted a mail survey fielded from May to July 2011 of 10,802 US households and individuals age 18+. Pew Research Center findings are based on a survey of 2,253 adults age 18+ fielded from Jan 20 to Feb 19, 2012. The report was authored by Kathryn Zickuhr and Mary Madden of the Pew Internet Project, June 6, 2012.
