Broad-based studies of how seniors use the Internet can be extremely useful for teachers planning a course of study. Courses that follow naturally what the students want will be better received than ones that follow what the teacher wants.

The Kaiser Family Trust report which I reviewed extensively in the previous three article was oriented primarily toward how seniors use the Internet to find information about healthcare. Today I want to introduce a differently study. The Pew/Internet project released a report, Older Americans and the Internet in March of 2004. So this report is a bit dated compared the one by KFT. The report starts by establishing who uses the Internet, and the fact that once seniors get online, they are as users as enthusiastic as younger folks. However, seniors who tend to use online services do so at lower rates than younger users.

Then the report turns to how seniors tend to use their abilities and their online connections. The main points are:

• 66% of wired seniors had looked for health or medical information online at some point in their online life by the end of 2003. That is a 13-point jump since 2000, and a growth rate of 25%. And online seniors are much more likely than other Internet users to have logged on to get information about Medicare and Medicaid.

• 66% of wired seniors had done product research online by the end of 2003. That is an 18-point jump since 2000, and a growth rate of 38%.
• 47% of online seniors had bought something on the Internet by the end of 2003. That is an 11-point increase since 2000 and a growth rate of 31%.
• 41% have made travel reservations online by the end of 2003. That is a 16-point increase since 2000 and a growth rate of 64%.
• 60% of wired seniors had visited government Web sites by the end of 2003. That is a 20-point jump since 2000, and a growth rate of 50%.
• 26% of wired seniors had looked for religious and spiritual information by the end of 2003. That is a 15-point jump since 2000, or a growth rate of 136%.
• 20% of online seniors had done banking on the Internet by the end of 2003. That is a 12-point increase since 2000 and a growth rate of 150%.

The percent looking for healthcare corresponds roughly with the KTF report, but the figures on travel reservations, government, and banking are very interesting. The online purchases do not correspond to my experience unless you include my wife and me in the statistics. I never would have thought to ask about religious or spiritual information, but that seems to be a popular use with seniors.

So as of about a year ago, most online seniors were concerned with finding information, whether about products or healthcare. About half actually buy things online. This has direct meaning for those who want to tutor seniors. It means that the course outline should be heavy on how to find information with emphasis on healthcare, and that emphasis should be followed up with instruction on how to purchase things online with safety. This last includes the important subset of travel reservations, and my own experience confirms what they say. Most of my clients make airline and hotel reservations online. They do not always do it optimally, but they do it.

Tomorrow I will review a study that investigated another topic of value to online seniors: buying and researching prescription drugs online.

For more in-depth tips on tutoring seniors, see the complete tutorial here. I also have posted a tutorial on elementary decision theory for those who might question a physician’s diagnosis (important for seniors) or anti-terrorist activities (important for everyone) but haven’t had the framework to analyze the data. That tutorial can be found here.