Generational use of new media and the (ir)relevance of age

Loos, E. (2011). Generational use of new media and the (ir)relevance of age. F. Colombo & L. Fortunati (Eds.). Broadband Society and Generational Changes. , 259-273Berlin: Peter Lang.

chapter Loos 2011.pdf

Abstract: The use of new media in our information society is constantly increasing, as is the number of older people. In the year 2000, the Council the European Union and the Commission of the European Communities presented an eEurope Action Plan entitled ‘An Information Society For All’ which set out three main objectives: the realization of a cheaper, faster, secure Internet, investment in people and skills, and encouragement to expand the use of the Internet. The second objective specifically stated that ‘the Lisbon European Council recognised that special attention should be given to disabled people and fight against info-exclusion. (…) As government services and important public information become increasingly available on-line, ensuring access to government websites for all citizens becomes as important as ensuring access to public buildings.’ It is interesting to note that, while the e-Europe Action Plan made explicit mention of disabled people, it wholly failed to address the issue of older citi-zens. In light of the growing number of older users in our information society, this is a group whose concerns also merit attention. The supply of digital information through websites and the like must be available to older generations, so that they have guaranteed access to the digital information sources provided by public and private organizations offering products and services they need. Some researchers argue that there is a widening generational digital gap between those people who are able to use new media and those who are not. It was Prensky (2001, pp. 1-2) who coined the notions of digital natives and digital immigrants. From an educational point of view, he considers students to be digital natives because they are ‘all native speakers of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet. So what does that make the rest of us? Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some point later in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them, Digital Immigrants’. Do they really exist, these digital natives, who are identified as the genera-tions born after 1990, who have grown up with new media? And is there really an older generation of digital immigrants playing catch-up by trying to learn how to use new media? Other researchers (Lenhart & Horrigan 2003) take a different perspective. They introduced the notion of a digital spectrum, which acknowledges that people use new media to varying degrees, depending not only on age but also on factors such as gender, educational background and frequency of internet use. If we want the supply of digital information through websites and the like to be readily available to older generations so that they are guaranteed access to the digital information sources provided by public and private organizations and the much-needed products and services offered there, we need to gain insight into their navigation behaviour. This paper therefore presents the results of an explorative case-study which focuses on the question of whether older people do indeed navigate websites differently from younger people. Or are the differences within this group arising from such factors as gender, educational background and frequency of internet use greater than the differences to be found between younger and older people?