Age, income, education affect older adults’ tech use during COVID-19

Among older adults, increasing age, low income, and low educational attainment are barriers to the uptake of new technologies amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a recent study has found.

Drawing from the 2019–2020 National Health and Aging Trends Study, researchers assessed the patterns of and factors associated with technology use in 23,547,688 elderly adults during the pandemic. Majority reported any technology use before (87.1 percent) and during (89.1 percent) the pandemic.

Of note, 60.2 percent of the participants said that they had increased their technology use amid COVID-19, particularly in terms of virtual contact with friends and family (22.6 percent) and with medical services (22.4 percent).

Despite high rates of use, 71.8 percent of participants did not learn a new technology for going online during the pandemic. In contrast, 17.4 percent and 10.8 percent did learn new technologies with or without help from others, respectively.

Participants who did not pick up new technologies for going online were significantly older than those who did so with help or by themselves (77.8 vs 76.4 or 74.7 years; p<0.01), were more likely to have finished only high school or lower education (41.7 percent vs 18.6 percent or 14.0 percent; p<0.01), and had lower income (26.6 percent vs 13.3 percent or 8.9 percent; p<0.01).

Multivariate logistic regression confirmed that older age, lower educational attainment, and lower income were all significant barriers to learning a new technology.

“Given the continued reliance on information communication technology (ICT) in daily life and healthcare delivery, learning assistance targeting older adults with identified barriers will help address disparities in ICT use during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond,” the researchers said.