Adults Adapting to Technology

Adults have done a fairly well job in trying to keep up with the changing times of the 21st century. Most have gotten round to using email; some better late than never, have learned how to use text messaging. I know for a fact that my own mother texts me more than she calls me while I am away at college and it makes life easier sometimes. However, there is that older American generation who has tried to avoid the technology boom. Beth Azar from the American Psychological Association says that these adults “still do their banking with live tellers, write letters in long hand and hang up the phone on anything but a live voice” (2). The people in this world must come to the conclusion that technology has infiltrated almost every aspect of life. And it has come to the time where certain individuals need to take the responsibility of learning new technologies which will make their lives easier after they get comfortable with it. The only two disadvantages that Beth Azar tells us about is that (1) Older adults “tend to have little experience with technology, and (2) even the healthiest among them show declines in cognitive and motor function that can interfere with their ability to use technologies” (3). With time, older adults may or may not learn to use new technologies. But in the end, it comes down to whether they truly are competent enough to use the technology.

Contradictory to Beth Azar’s article from the American Psychological Association, the University of Delaware has conducted a study in which they presume that older adults’ motor skills may not interfere with their ability to use technology. Video games have always been blamed for weight gain, and the lack of fitness in little children and teens. However, the new game console Nintendo Wii has everyone up and about. There are games that allow people of all ages to play outdoor sports indoors. Wii tennis, Wii bowling, Wii baseball, and Wii Fit have everyone up and exercising. “Orsega-Smith from the Department of Behavioral Health and Nutrition at the University of Delaware, is conducting research on the use of “exergames” –games that require physical exertion as an input to gain feedback from the system—with older adults” (1). With a group of undergraduates, Orsega-Smith and her team “compared the caloric expenditure of playing various Wii sports games –bowling, tennis, and baseball—or 30 minutes….The calories burned ranged from a low of 18-89 for team bowling to a high of 22-114 for baseball. If we assume an average of about 50 calories for half an hour three times a week,” Orsega-Smith says, “that's 7,800 calories a year” (3). Even though older adults will be participating in these activities and studies, these activities are nowhere near helping them avoid chronic heart disease, high cholesterol, muscle fatigue, tendonitis, etc… But it is helping “slow down the ‘middle-age spread’ that occurs gradually with age” (4). It is better than doing nothing.

In light of the information we uncovered, we decided to create a survey that could either demonstrate that adults of previous generations are neglecting modernizing with technology or if they are adapting. The survey was composed of twelve questions that also asked for age, occupation, and gender. The questions are as follow:

1) To what extent, do you operate a mobile phone on a daily basis?
1 –Not at all 2 3-Moderate 4 5 –Frequently
2) To what extent, do you use the internet on a daily basis?
1 –Not at all 2 3-Moderate 4 5 –Frequently
3) On average, how many internet user accounts do you uphold on a daily basis? (ex: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc…)
1 2 3 4 5
4) To what extent, do you know how to operate Microsoft Office?
1 –Not at all 2 3-Moderate 4 5 –Proficiently
5) To what extent, do you know how to operate Photoshop?
1 –Not at all 2 3-Moderate 4 5 –Proficiently
6) To what extent, do you know how to operate iTunes?
1 –Not at all 2 3-Moderate 4 5 –Proficiently
7) On a daily basis, how often do you operate text messaging?
1 –Not at all 2 3-Moderate 4 5 –Proficiently
8) Do you own any gaming consoles?
0 1 2 3 4 5
9) Do you own a Smartphone?
Yes No
10) What is your occupation?
11) What is your age?
12) What is your gender?

We had originally planned to ask ten adults and in order to have a unit of comparison, we decided to ask ten college students/young adults the exact same questions. The method of surveying was slightly difficult. We did not want to create an account on surverymonkey.com or online in general because we thought it would skew our data from the start. If we decided to put the survey online, those who are not adapted to the internet will automatically be denied access. However, due to the short time, we sent out an e-mail containing the questions to the survey. We did not attach a file in order to make it simpler.

Unfortunately, out of the ten young adults/students we emailed, only eight replied. Yet, it is not as bad as the response we saw from the older adults. Out of eleven emails that were sent out, only two responded. We didn’t think two responses would be sufficient enough to support our study. Our prediction was that the surveys would demonstrate that our generation and those that follow have a greater interaction with technology. However, the adults will also show a greater interaction than that implied by Beth Azar’s article, but of course not at the same level as the college students sampled. In order to gather as much data as possible in the time we had, we re-emailed the surveys to students, and took a different approach for the adults. We did re-email them as well but we also did some physical interaction. Instead of using the internet, we printed the surveys and physically interacted with adults. We were able to get a University of Maryland professor from the College of Arts and Humanities to participate. Although, we wanted to get more professors involved, it was not possible because of the midterm assignments that were taking place this week. Nonetheless we were able to get a total six surveys done by adults and ten by young adults. The data was compiled into the following tables:




According to the data we collected, all the young adults use the internet, cell phones, and interact with technology as we had expected; although, there are a few exceptions. Students D and E do not own gaming consoles, Student D does not know how to operate iTunes at all, and more than half of the young adults’ surveyed do not own a smart phone.

With the data collected for older adults, there seems to be variation. Some of the adults use their mobile phones more than others, and half of those surveyed use the internet more than they use their mobile phones. There is a similarity in the ownership of smart phones in this group as was seen in the young adult group. Five out of the six do not own smart phones.

After analyzing the data, we came upon an alternate conclusion. Our predictions were supported by our findings. The adults that we were able to survey do interact with technology and incorporate it to some degree in their daily lives. The level of incorporation is seen to be higher among young adults as we had predicted as well. However, we did learn something new; that certain factors contribute to the older adults’ adaptation to technology. Looking at the data, it was clear that the occupation of the older adults had a level of correlation with how often or proficiently they function with technology. It is seen that the CEO has the highest level of technology incorporation on a daily basis. Compared to the educators that make up half of those surveyed, the lowest level of technology incorporation was seen among the carpenter and retired. We could infer that age might also have an influence, and it might, but in this case it is not such a great factor because the carpenter and CEO are nearly the same age. After taking this discovery into account, we concluded that there are many other factors such as age and ethnicity that can influence how much an older adult will adapt with technology. Yet, in this scenario our original predictions were supported.