Copyright 1996 by
The Cerontological Society of America
The Cerontologist
Vol.36, No. 5,565-569
Internet Resources on Aging
Seniors on the Net
Joyce A. Post, MSLS1
Note: The specific sites described in this column
are examples only. The information about them is
correct at the time this is written; it may have changed
by the time this is published. There are now over 700
sites in aging and it is not possible to mention all of
them in this series of columns. Fora comprehensive
list, use "Internet and E-Mail Resources on Aging" at
http://www.aoa.dhhs.gov/aoa/pages/jpostlst.html.
How Many Seniors Have Computers
and Use the Internet?
There are many different published figures and
interpretations of the figures on how many older
adults own computers and access the Internet. There
are, for example, 1995 figures from O'Reilly & Associates showing that 4% of online service subscribers
are 65 and over (http://www.ora.com/research/users/
charts/online-age.html) and that 1% of Internet users
are 65 and over (http://www.ora.com/research/users/
charts/net-age.html). You can find figures from the
U.S. Census Bureau on how many people 65 and
older used computers in 1993 at: http://www.census,
gov/population/socdemo/computer/compuseb.txt.
Although the numbers may vary, the conclusions
remain the same: older people are a surprisingly
large segment of the population using computers.
One of the more recent surveys was conducted in
November 1995 by Richard P. Adler and sponsored by
SeniorNet with a grant from Intel Corporation. It is an
update of a similar SeniorNet/lntel study made in
1994. Two separate telephone interviews with a total
of 700 Americans aged 55 and over found that 30% of
the adults between the ages of 55 and 75 owned a
computer, and 23% of those 75 and older owned a
computer. 28% of these computer owners "regularly
used an online service" and 65% of online users had
"accessed the Internet in the past month" (from the
1
This is the fifth in a series of columns on the Internet by Joyce A. Post, the
Librarian at the Philadelphia Geriatric Center, 5301 Old York Road, Philadelphia, PA 19141.
Vol. 36, No. 5,1996
"Highlights of Survey Findings"). The full report, with
tables and graphs, of "Older Adults and Computers:
Report of a National Survey," will be found at: http://
www.seniornet.org/intute/survey2.html.
Sites Older People Use
Internet sites that older people use range along a
spectrum of types from personal home pages created by older users themselves through home pages
with a high information content created by others for
elderly users to virtual communities. They also range
along a spectrum of use from sending e-mail messages to accessing the World Wide Web.
Personal Home Pages
Older people create their own home pages mainly
to socialize with others on the Internet and because
they enjoy using computers. Their home pages typically include biographical information; images of
themselves, their family, and pets; and links to their
favorite Internet sites. A good place to find a list of
these home pages is "Seniors on the Net: Home
Pages of Cyber Citizens that Rock" at: http://elo.
mediasrv.swt.edu/goldenage/seniors.htm.
One of the more interesting personal home pages
is "Goldngal: the Cyberspace Granny" at: http://
www.fyi.net/~goldngal/goidn2.htm. She entered cyberspace when her husband gave her a computer as
a 50th anniversary gift. She has also started Channel
#65plus on the Undernet IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
Network which has 40 members at this writing. You
can find links to the home pages of these members
from Goldngal's home page.
Internet Relay Chat allows groups of people to go
on the Internet at the same time and participate in
real-time conversations and is said to be what CB
radio would be like if it was on the Internet. For more
information about IRC go to the "Introduction to
IRC" link of the home page of the mIRC client software at: http://www.mirc.co.uk/irc.html, and for information about the Undernet IRC Network go to
their home page at: http://www.undernet.org.
565
Pen Pals
Connecting with young children by e-mail to share
messages, memories, and wisdom is something a lot
of older adults enjoy doing. Many do this on a oneto-one basis with their own grandchildren. Others
like to connect with any young child and put their
names on lists such as "Grandparent E-Mail Pen Pals"
at: http://iquest.com/~jsm/moms/grand.html and
become surrogate grandparents. Another program,
"Senior Partners in Education," matches adult letter
writers with Junior Partners throughout the United
States. Its home page is at: http://www.indiana.edu/
~eric_rec/seniors/intro.html.
The MEMORIES e-mail discussion group is intended mainly for children in grades K-12 where
people who have lived through World War II describe
their experiences and answer the childrens' questions. To subscribe to this discussion group, send
a message to: [email protected].
Leave the subject line blank and send a one-line
message: subscribe MEMORIES (firstname lastname).
An Annenberg PAL Project conducted by Pamela
Wendt, professor at the University of Southern
California ([email protected]), that facilitated,
through America Online, the connecting of isolated
older adults by e-mail with school children has just
concluded. The goal was to create a digital community whose members visited and supported one another. Although the project is ended, PALs have
been encouraged to exchange e-mail addresses and
continue their friendships. The project is currently
being evaluated to measure its effectiveness in addressing the social isolation and connectedness of
participants.
Creative Writing
"CyberSenior Review" is a quarterly online electronic magazine, or "zine," of copyrighted short
stories, personal essays, and other writings, and is a
project of the ELDERS e-mail discussion group. The
Review began in March 1994 and the three members
of its editorial board are from Australia, the United
Kingdom, and Columbus, Ohio. The full text of all
the issues will be found at: gopher://gopher.etext.
org/11/Zines/CyberSenior. The July 1996 issue has an
editorial by one of the board members, essays about
growing up in Minnesota and Ethiopia, an essay
about Maori place names, and a poem about grandchildren. To subscribe to the ELDERS discussion
group send a message to LISTSERV@SJUVM.
STJOHNS.EDU, leave the subject line blank, and
send a one-line message: subscribe ELDERS
(firstname lastname).
Jim Olson is the editor of two different creative
writing forums on the Internet. Both come to subscribers free via e-mail, but the subscription list for
each one is separate. To get on either subscription
list send an e-mail message to the editor at: olsonjam
@uwec.edu.
The bimonthly "Silver Threads" newsletter (prior to
the June 1996 issue it was called the "Senior Group
Newsletter") is available in a World Wide Web ver566
sion at: http://www.freenet.mb.ca/sthreads/and in a
text version at: http://bcn.boulder.co.us/community/
senior-citizens/seniorgroup/center.html. Each issue
features "Introductions" by seniors who tell about
themselves and give their e-mail addresses for further
correspondence, writings (the June 1996 issue has a
poem by a person who has turned 100), and information about other web sites for seniors.
Olson's other bimonthly publication, alternating
with "Silver Threads," is "Elderhostel Notebook" at:
http://bcn.boulder.co.us/community/senior-citizens/
eldmar.html. Here people write about their Elderhostel experiences. The publication is not officially
connected with Elderhostel.
General Education
Information about general educational opportunities for seniors is available on the Internet. One of
the largest and best known for people 55 and over is
Elderhostel. Elderhostel offers inexpensive shortterm academic and cultural programs hosted by educational institutions around the world. The organization's home page is at: http://www.elderhostel.org,
but there are also a lot of other Elderhostel sites on
the Internet that describe specific programs. To
locate these, go to one of the search engines like
Alta Vista, Lycos, or Webcrawler and search on
"elderhostel." I did this on Alta Vista and found over
80 different Elderhostel Web sites. I found more
specific programs using Alta Vista when I entered
"elderhostel photography" (this search engine says
not to add an " a n d " between terms), for example,
and "elderhostel New Zealand."
Many colleges and universities offer courses for
older adults and, if they have a home page, most of
them have included information about these offerings there. Look for words and phrases on these
home pages like "over 60 (or 55, or 65)," "older
adult," "senior," etc. For example, information
about Portland State University's Senior Adult Learning Center for persons 65 and over not seeking college credit who wish to attend regular college classes
on a space-available basis without paying tuition is
at: http://www.ee.pdx.edu/other/saic/salc.html.
Information about a University of Arizona plan to
establish an Arizona Senior Academy at a continuing
care retirement community is at: http://www.al.
arizona.edu/academy/asadesc.html.
The home page for "DESI: Distance Education for
Seniors on the Internet" sponsored by Virginia Tech
University at: http://tism.bevc.blacksburg.va.us/desi.
html states that its purpose is to both bring educational services via computer into the homes of seniors and to ascertain how many seniors are using the
Internet. Although the site provides a variety of links
to other Internet sites, at this writing there was no
information at this site related to its stated purpose.
Computer Training
"SeniorNet" has probably done more to promote
the use of computers by seniors than any other
program. It is a nonprofit international community of
The Gerontologist
computer-using seniors begun by Mary Furlong in
1986 with 20 people on the Delphi network. Now, ten
years later, it reaches over 85,000 people between
the ages of 55 and 102 and has over 85 Learning
Centers where seniors go to take introductory and
advanced computer courses and to use the Center
computers to communicate electronically. Its home
page is at: http://www.seniornet.org. In 1996 Mary
Furlong and Stefan B. Lipson's Young@heart: Computing for Seniors was published by Osborne
McGraw-Hill. This is the first how-to-do-it guide to
using computers specifically written for seniors. In
July 1996 Mary Furlong announced plans to leave
SeniorNet to create the for-profit Global Senior Network, Inc.
Commercial Services and Newsgroups
Each of the commercial online services, like America Online, CompuServe, and Prodigy, has several
forums and chat rooms with a senior focus. The key
words to look for in each case are "senior" or "seniors." In addition, SeniorNet members have access
to SeniorNet Online on America Online and on
Microsoft Network, and American Association of
Retired Persons (AARP) members have access to
AARP Online on America Online, CompuServe, and
Prodigy.
Several newsgroups have discussions of interest to
seniors. "Soc. retirement," at this writing, has discussion threads on newsgroup netiquette, AARP, and
"second to die" insurance. "Man.elders" is for seniors in Manitoba, and when it was checked for this
column, it had an announcement of an upcoming
senior creative computer club meeting in Winnipeg.
Use the search engine at DejaNews at: http://
www.dejanews.com to find any newsgroup.
Meeting Places on Local Community Sites
Several hundred communities around the world
have home pages that describe local services for
seniors and also often include some direct links to
other sites for seniors on the Internet. Typically,
these are not live online sites where local seniors can
communicate electronically or learn how to use a
computer. Instead, they are lists of resources compiled by a local senior service agency like a State or
Area Agency on Aging, or a local Alzheimer's organization, or a state association of homes for the aging.
The best up-to-date source of these home pages is
the "Index of Service Sites in the U.S. by State"
section of Bruce Craig's Directory of WEB and Gopher Aging Sites at: http://www.aoa.dhhs.gov/aoa/
webres/index.htm.
Some of these communities are wired, however,
and provide excellent meeting places for their seniors. Three of the earliest ones are still among the
best. Blacksburg, Virginia is a community where,
beginning in 1993, all its citizens were wired into a
local network and could subscribe to the "Blacksburg Electronic Village" (BEV). Their "Senior Information Page" at: http://www.bev.net/community/
seniors provides a mix of local online socializing
Vol.36, No. 5,1996
opportunities along with many local (a schedule of
Blacksburg seniors meetings) and national (CNNInteractive) information links. There is an e-mail discussion group called "BEV-SENIORS" with over 80
subscribers as of July 1996. And there is "Seniors
Online, Blacksburg, VA" at: http://www.bev.net/
community/seniors/sol/sol.html, where there is useful guidance on using a computer and getting connected to the Internet, links to useful software, a
guide to creating a home page, links to online reference resources, and links to many of the Internet
search engines.
Members of the Boulder Community Network in
Boulder, Colorado are also connected electronically
and their "Seniors' Center" is at: http://bcn.boulder,
co.us/community/senior-citizens/center.html. Here,
among many useful information links for seniors, is a
link to their "Seniors Online" page where there are
plans to promote seniors' use of cyberspace.
The "Seniors Computer Information Project"
(SCIP) in Manitoba, Canada at: http://www.mbnet.
mb.ca/crm is also similarly configured with many
Internet links for Canadian seniors. It also has an
extensive list of the e-mail addresses of "SCIP CyberPals" around the world who want to be pen pals.
Seniors can also register themselves with SCIP to be
pen pals. The URL is: http://www.mbnet.mb.ca/crm/
cyberpal/index.html.
Resources Sites with Direct Internet Access for Users
Many home pages have been specifically created
for older people providing links to preselected Internet resources the developer has decided would
be of interest to them. However, until very recently,
few of these home pages thought, or had the capability, to provide an additional link for their users that
gave them a direct online connection out to the
Internet to send an e-mail message or participate in a
forum.
"AARP Webplace," for example, at: http://www.
aarp.org has a feature where members can send email messages back to the organization. "Older,
Wiser & Wired: a Virtual Community for Netsurfers
Over 50" at: http://www.oww.com/index.html provides many links and, at this writing, says a bulletin
board is under construction. "Senior Japan" at:
http://www.mki.co.jp/senior/seni15.html allows users to respond to proposed courses to be offered by
the University of Senior Japan.
At this time it is the sites specializing in links to
consumer information for seniors where the most
sophisticated direct Internet links for users are
found. "SeniorCom" at: http://www.senior.com, for
example, provides the typical links to legal, financial,
travel, shopping, government, health, and other information one finds on almost every consumer Web
site for seniors. However, it also has a "SeniorCom
Auditorium" where users can log on and participate
in moderated and non-moderated forums and in
chat rooms as well. A moderated forum is one where
a live human being decides whether sent messages
are posted on the forum; a non-moderated forum is
567
one where every message sent is posted, unmediated, on the forum. At this writing there are separate
forums on over 125 different topics grouped under
nine larger themes. One of these themes is the
"Century Club," for people over 90 years of age. A
search engine for the "SeniorCom" forums is also
provided.
"Seniors-Site" at: http://seniors-site.com also provides forums under many of its consumer topics.
"Elder Watch" at: http://wellweb.com/seniors/
eldershp.htm allows users to submit consumer-type
articles via e-mail to be included at their site.
Virtual Communities
Some of the newer Web sites are presenting their
information using a different approach that takes
advantage of the graphical user interface (GUI) of
Windows operating systems. When you log on to
these virtual communities/villages/worlds — you
can't really call them home pages — you are presented with the schematic — a sort of stylized map —
of a community, complete with buildings or objects
to click on for specific types of information.
Some Internet users are very enthusiastic about
this approach and consider it very intuitive to click on
a building called the "Visitor's Center," for example,
to get an overview of the resources available at each
of the village's buildings and objects, or the "News
Stand," for example, for links to local or national
newspapers. Others think this approach is too cute.
One thing is for certain: it takes longer to download
a beginning village graphic than it does to download
a home page with few graphics.
At this writing there are three known virtual communities in aging. Although "Older, Wiser & Wired"
(OWW) described above calls itself a virtual community, it does not have either a graphical village square
or buildings where one goes to find further information. In electronic situations the term "virtual"
means resembling a place and, using this definition,
OWW does not qualify.
SeniorCom, described above, was the first virtual
community. When you log on, you'll find a village
square with nine buildings around the perimeter.
These include, for example, the "Health & Wellness
Center" (for links to resources on nutrition, sports,
support groups, etc.), "City Hall" (for links to providers of public services and non-profit organizations in aging), and the "Main Street Mall" (for online
shopping).
The University of Pennsylvania Institute on Aging's
Turtle Springs Virtual Seniors Community is at: http://
www.med.upenn.edu/~aging/turtle/turtle.html. It is
still largely under construction and plans to focus on
providing health care information from their "Recreation Center," their "Health Center," and their "Fitness Center." Seniors from the University's Senior
Associates' volunteer group are doing most of the
work of creating the Turtle Springs community.
Elderville is another virtual community. You get to
it from ElderNet in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada at:
http://www.eldernet.org. It too is largely under con568
struction and does not use the graphic buildings
approach. It has buildings with names (like the
"Home & Garden Center," the "Elderville Gallery,"
the "Weather Office," and the "Village Cafe") but
these appear on a list rather than as graphics. Unlike
at Turtle Springs, you must register to use Elderville.
Elderville has ElderChat, a bulletin board, and e-mail,
which Turtle Springs does not.
Electronic Magazines
"Maturity USA" is a monthly Web magazine for
seniors at: http://www.maturityusa.com. It has feature articles and travel, financial, and health sections. A real-time chat room is under construction at
this writing. "Grand Times: Exclusively for Active
Retirees" at: http://www.grandtimes.com is the online version of a printed magazine for seniors with
consumer information on products, services, travel,
etc. Grand Times' "Senior Friendship Connection"
is under construction at this time at this site. "Today's Seniors" at: http://NovaTech.on.ca/seniors/
todaysen.html is the Internet version of a printed
monthly tabloid newspaper circulated in 4 Canadian
provinces and Florida.
Finding Similar Sites
"Cybersenior" is an excellent key word to use
when looking for places on the Internet where seniors meet. I searched on this term in seven of the
most popular Internet search engines and had varying results.
The Alta Vista search engine at: http://altavista.
digital.com gave me the largest number of relevant
results with 27 links. Lycos at: http://www.lycos.com
came next with 24 links, but the results were not as
relevant. Excite at: http://www.excite.com claims to
be the largest web site index and, indeed, it did give
me the most hits: 128 to be exact, but few of them
were relevant — they appeared to be largely old
gopher sites and redundant listings of sections of
home pages.
The Infoseek search engine at: http://guide.
infoseek.com gave me 11 links, Magellan at: http://
www.mckinley.com gave me ten, and Webcrawler
at: http://www.webcrawler.com gave me seven,
none of which were relevant. The Webcrawler
results were surprising, considering that it is one of
the oldest and still one of the best search engines
around. Unexpected results like this with any search
engine are an indication to the user to try the search
again with a different key word or words.
Yahoo! also has a search engine at: http://www.
yahoo.com, but it is powered by Alta Vista, and when
I searched "cybersenior" on it, it gave me the same
27 links as Alta Vista.
These search engines are all available from the Net
Search button on the Netscape toolbar, but I have
provided the URLs of each one as well.
The author welcomes comments and suggestions at
post(5)shrsys.hslc.org or [email protected].
The Gerontologist
Table 1. Resources Described in This Column
Name/Type
Seniors Using Computers and the Internet
O'Reilly & Associates
U.S. Census Bureau
"Older Adults and Computers"
Location
http://www.ora.com/research/users/charts/online-age.html
http://www.ora.com/research/users/charts/net-age.html
http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/computer/compuseb.txt
http://www.seniornet.org/intute/survey2.html
Personal Home Pages
Seniors on the Net
Coldngal: the Cyberspace Granny
Introduction to IRC
Undernet IRC Network
http://elo.mediasrv.swt.edu/goldenage/seniors.htm
http://www.fyi.net/~goldngal/goldn2.htm
http://www.mirc.co.uk/irc.html
http://www.undernet.org
Pen Pals
Grandparent E-Mail Pen Pals
Senior Partners in Education
MEMORIES e-mail discussion group
Annenberg PAL Project
http://iquest.com/~jsm/moms/grand.html
http://www.indiana.edu/~eric_rec/seniors/intro.html
[email protected]
[email protected]
Creative Writing
CyberSenior Review
ELDERS e-mail discussion group
Jim Olson
Silver Threads
Elderhostel Notebook
gopher://gopher.etext.org/11/Zines/CyberSenior
[email protected]
[email protected]
http://www.freenet.mb.ca/sthreads/ (Web version)
http://bcn.boulder.co.us/community/senior-citizens/seniorgroup/center.html
(text version)
http://bcn.boulder.co.us/community/senior-citizens/eldmar.html
General Education
Elderhostel
Portland State University
Arizona Senior Academy
Distance Education for Seniors on the Internet
http://www.elderhostel.org
http://www.ee.pdx.edu/other/salc/salc.html
http://www.al.arizona.edu/academy/asadesc.html
http://tism.bevc.blacksburg.va.us/desi.html
Computer Training
SeniorNet
http://www.seniornet.org
Commercial Services and Newsgroups
DejaNews
http://www.dejanews.com
Meeting Places on Local Community Sites
Index of Service Sites in the U.S. by State
Blacksburg Electronic Village
Senior Information Page
Seniors Online
Boulder Community Network, Seniors' Center
Seniors Computer Information Project (SCIP)
SCIP CyberPals
http://www.aoa.dhhs.gov/aoa/webres/index.htm
http://www.bev.net/community/seniors
http://www.bev.net/community/seniors/sol/sol.html
http://bcn.boulder.co.us/community/senior-citizens/center.html
http://www.mbnet.mb.ca/crm
http://www.mbnet.mb.ca/crm/cyberpal/index.html
Resources Sites with Direct Internet Access
AARP Webplace
Older, Wiser & Wired
Senior Japan
SeniorCom
Seniors-Site
Elder Watch
http://www.aarp.org
http://www.oww.com/index.html
http://www.mki.co.jp/senior/seni15.html
http://www.senior.com
http://seniors-site.com
http://wellweb.com/seniors/eldershp.htm
Virtual Communities
Turtle Springs Virtual Seniors Community
Elderville
http://www.med.upenn.edu/~aging/turtle/turtle.html
http://www.eldernet.org
Electronic Magazines
Maturity USA
Grand Times
Today's Seniors
http://www.maturityusa.com
http://www.grandtimes.com
http://NovaTech.on.ca/seniors/todaysen.html
Finding Similar Sites
Alta Vista
Lycos
Excite
Infoseek
Magellan
Webcrawler
Yahoo!
http://altavista.digital.com
http://www.lycos.com
http://www.excite.com
http://guide.infoseek.com
http://www.mckinley.com
http://www.webcrawler.com
http://www.yahoo.com
Vol. 36, No. 5,1996
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