Email availability and usage among the Elderly
I am a member of three Senior
Citizens Associations viz: Association of Senior Citizens of Hyderabad (Lions
Bhavan), Senior Citizens Forum, Secunderabad (Centenary High School) and
LOLA7817SCA (Jyothi Colony). Email
availability among members in these three SCAs is shown below:
|
SCA -à
|
SCF
|
AOSC
|
LOLA
|
|
ESTD
|
Jan 1993
|
Jan 2001
|
Sep 2014
|
|
Total # of members
|
405
|
250
|
55
|
|
# having Email
|
108
|
74
|
38
|
|
percentage
|
26
|
30
|
69
|
It may be noted that the
earliest one to be established and also the largest membership– SCF has 26% -
minimum percentage of members - having Email. And the most recent one to start
and having minimum number of members - LOLA has largest percentage of members
having email. This is understandable
from many angles. Those who joined oldest association early did not have email
as that was not popular or easy to get. Email penetration is increasing over
decades and if we start an SCA now, almost everyone is likely to fill Email
column with some Email address in the application form.
Apart from the above, my
observation is that though several senior citizens apparently have email Ids
those using them actively is abysmally small. Use of technology still daunts them.
For instance, if I send a message asking for some action to all in AOSC – 74
people I get replies from just three or four. Same is the case with SCF: some four people are active SENDING messages,
rest of them among 108 don’t even reply. As the saying goes in Tamil, it is a
stone thrown into the well!
Availability of Smartphones
and WhatsApp accounts indicate that may have Internet on their phones. But when
I call for an official meeting - zoom or
Google Meet Video conferencing, less than twenty turn up as participants. This
is strange as I guess that most seniors, out of necessity to be in touch with
their kith and kin, will be using video conferencing tools.
Are there ways motivate the
elderly to use and benefit from Email? Are they happy with WhatsApp? I can not
guess. Any clues?
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