new media & society

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Vol 11(7): 1083–1100 [DOI: 10.1177/1461444809340786]

ARTICLE

‘It could be useful, but not

for me at the moment’:
older people, internet
access and e-public
service provision
MARIA SOURBATI
University of Brighton, UK

Abstract
Older people are commonly constructed as a group of heavy
users of public services that misses out on opportunities
presented online, mainly due to age-related barriers to accessing
the internet. Drawing on a study of internet access in sheltered
homes for older people, this article argues for the need to focus
electronic service provision around the needs, preferences
and abilities of the users of public services. A user-centred
perspective in e-government and e-service provision requires an
understanding of the socially shaped and locally situated nature
of media use, which can in turn help prevent the tendency
to see chronological age as the sole factor determining (non-)
engagement with the internet. It also requires investment in
making available assistance and support to access online digital
media in order to prevent the disadvantaging of vulnerable
service users.

Key words
age • e-government • e-public service • internet access • older
people

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INTRODUCTION
In the context of Europe’s e-government policy initiatives, digital online
information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been set as key
channels for the delivery of social policy objectives (Cabinet Office, 2000;
EC, 1999). Predicated upon a belief in the transformative powers of ICT
(Hudson, 2003), e-government initiatives are underlain by assumptions
that the use of the internet will help improve the delivery of public services
(see, for example, Cabinet Office, 2005a, 2005b; NAO, 2003). In order to
promote access among the most disadvantaged groups, identified as those
‘on low incomes, the elderly and people with disabilities’ (Cabinet Office,
2002: 71), who are traditionally heavy users of welfare services such as social
care, health care and housing, the UK government run the UK Online
umbrella initiative. Launched in 2002, UK Online sponsored community
internet access points, free computer training tester sessions and major
marketing campaigns to promote awareness of the internet among its target
groups. Evaluation published by the National Audit Office (NAO, 2003)
revealed a minimal impact on encouraging disadvantaged groups to actually
make use of community ICT provision in UK Online centres. The UK’s
national strategy, updated at the end of 2005, now prioritizes an increase in
understanding of ‘the needs of key groups – such as older people’ (Cabinet
Office, 2005b: 8).
This article considers the use of internet technologies to access public
and welfare services. More specifically, it wishes to examine the situation of
older pensioners in the UK. So far, there has been little evidence of policy
consideration of those welfare service users who are referred to as ‘older and
disabled people’ or ‘the elderly and those with disabilities’. There has not
been a national scheme to promote ICT learning for older citizens,1 and the
paucity of academic literature on older people and new media technologies
has contributed little in addressing their invisibility in public policy debates.
In the following discussion the first section considers how older people are
positioned in e-government. The second section discusses the relationship of
older people with new media, drawing on more nuanced conceptualizations
of internet access and a small body of published research into older adults’
encounters with new online ICTs. The article then discusses findings from a
small-scale qualitative study of experiences and perceptions of the internet in
sheltered homes for older people in relation to questions of access to digital
online connectivity as a means to access public services online.

OLDER PEOPLE IN E-GOVERNMENT DISCOURSES

Older people who use welfare services are constructed as major beneficiaries
of electronic service provision. Early research commissioned by the EU
(Gilligan, 1998) and UK public sector bodies (Blake, 1998) has reported

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 Sourbati: ‘It could be useful, but not for me at the moment’

that internet access improves the opportunities for isolated, home-centred

older users to contact people and services, increase their sense of security
and support independent living in the community. Consequently, if older
citizens are not able to use the internet, they are disadvantaged with regard
to their partaking in any opportunities presented online. Worse, their
non-participation in conducting everyday life transactions electronically is
thought to constitute a problem in terms of social and economic inclusion
(Richardson et al., 2005: 220).
Within policy and popular discourses, older people are commonly defined
in relation to two problems. First, their overall proportion of demand for
welfare services due to their experience of age-related decline and disability.
Collectively, older adults are major users of public services provided by
central and local government. In 2000–01, 50 percent of the UK’s social
security budget and 41 percent of the National Health Service (NHS)
budget were spent on 11 million citizens of pensionable age (65 or over),
which amounted to 18 percent of the national population (NAO, 2003: 13;
ODPM, 2006a: 40). Second, older people are a ‘problem’ due to their
lack of engagement with new ICTs. Although internet use by older adults
grows steadily, as internet take-up remains lowest between older adults, age
continues to feature as a significant factor in whether people use the internet.
Internet takeup remains lowest among older adults. In 2004, 31 percent of
UK residents aged between 65 and 74 had accessed the internet and just one
in five aged over 75 versus 60 percent of the national population (OxIS,
2005: 51–2). This trend is not dissimilar to the situation in the USA, where
over one-third (38%) of people aged over 65 were going online in 2003
compared with 75.9 percent of all Americans (USC, 2004: 28, 31). Numbers
fall dramatically across the EU, where, according to the 2004 Eurostat survey,
just over 10 percent of Europeans aged 65 or over had accessed the internet
in 20042 (Euractive, 2005).
The relationship of older adults with new ICTs is most commonly
oversimplified, framed in terms of a generation gap. New media are coded
as the domain of younger generations. Older people are associated with
notions of technophobia, passivity and decay (Riggs, 2004). Barrier analysis
commonly suggests that they are inhibited from using the internet because
of individual circumstances or personal deficiencies attributed to their being
older adults (Richardson et al., 2005: 222). In a report published by the
NAO, the factors deterring use of e-government services by older people
are identified as the physiological effects of ageing, lack of confidence or
familiarity with new technologies, learning and skills, lack of perceived
value, costs, location and inaccessible design (NAO, 2003: 17). Reflecting
reports that older people are physically and psychologically disadvantaged
when learning to use computer technologies, the NAO document mainly

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highlights changes associated with the physiological process of ageing.

A decline in vision, slowing of movement and arthritis-related physical
dexterity make it difficult to use technological artefacts designed for younger,
able-bodied users. Poor ergonomics and interface design aside, older people
are reported to face age-related declines in perceptual and cognitive abilities
that impede their ability to learn to use the internet, to exhibit a reduced
sense of perceived control when confronting new ICTs and to show a lack
of motivation and confidence in learning, including a perceived lack of need
for, or interest in, computers and computing (see Eastman and Iyer, 2004: 3;
Richardson et al., 2005: 222; Riggs, 2004: 220; Selwyn et al., 2003: 563).
Cost-related barriers can be seen to diminish in significance as the price of
basic equipment and internet connection drops and communal internet access
points become available (although the cost of up-to-date equipment and
software is a constant and the income of most pensioners low).
While doubly articulated as a problem, older people remain virtually
unheard about their lived experience (Riggs, 2004: 117, citing Blaikie, 1999)
and how the internet may or may not fit it. Accounts of benefits accruing
from internet access typically mention an enhancement of communication
with family and friends, expanding opportunities for lifelong learning,
improved access to health care and medical services, new options in
entertainment, overcoming mobility constraints, supporting and sustaining
independent living (Adler, 2002; NAO, 2003; Seniornet, 2004). More
recently, a growing impression of web-savvy ‘silver surfers’ has come to
suggest that ‘older people who haven’t joined the information-rich “haves” of
society have failed to do so out of choice, or stodginess, or they just haven’t
been tapped as a market segment’ (Riggs, 2004: 82). Yet any advantages
stemming from internet access do not apply to all. Such advantages can be
a possibility only for those who have an interest in continuing learning, live
independently in the community and have family and friends to contact,
something that, according to the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, does
not apply to more than one in 10 in the over 50 cohort who do not have any
social relations (ODPM, 2006b: 70).
Prevailing conceptualizations of older internet (non-)users draw on
unidimensional, universalist and unrealistic notions of access. Internet access,
understood as a binary good, as in the ‘digital divide’ metaphor, is equated
with access to media technologies as objects, and on the whole produces
positive outcomes. E-government policy discourses tend to treat internet
access as a teleological category – an end goal or purpose in itself rather than
a means to an end. Two questions that have not been considered are, first,
whether internet access and use are attractive to all or are useful and relevant
to peoples’ lives and, second, whether and in what ways older people can
obtain the resources that make internet access useable.

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 Sourbati: ‘It could be useful, but not for me at the moment’

OLDER PEOPLE AND NEW MEDIA: SOCIAL REALITIES AND

INDIVIDUAL CIRCUMSTANCES
Access to the internet is about more than providing networked ICTs and
training. Internet access is a multi-level concept describing multifaceted
sociotechnical realities (Selwyn, 2004). It can be thought of as a continuum
of physical artefacts, software tools, content services, social infrastructure
and governance (Clement and Shade, 2000). Meaningful access to the
internet requires a variety of resources comprising physical resources
(infrastructure and equipment), digital resources (content services), human
resources (literacies and education) and social resources (communities and
institutions supporting/facilitating use of digital resources; Warschauer, 2003).
Engagement with internet technologies can therefore be seen to be defined
by unequally distributed capabilities (Mansell, 2002). Empirical studies
have also shown how the use values derived from engagement with media
technologies are conditioned by the personal circumstances currently faced by
users and their social context (Wyatt et al., 2005). In the case of older adults,
the particular circumstances and values associated with different ICTs can be
both the product of their life histories, including experiences of class, culture
and education, and the particular circumstances of their contemporary social
context (Haddon and Silverstone, 1996: 160; Willis, 1995). In other words,
older people’s encounter with media technologies can be shaped as much
by other social and cultural experiences as by age (Haddon and Silverstone,
1996: 161; Riggs, 2004: 86). What merits research and policy attention is
therefore how use of internet technologies is historically and socially situated.
(Non-)use can be contingent on the wider structuring of society, reflecting
stratifications in income and education (Rice and Katz, 2003) as well as a host
of individualized circumstances, interpretations and mediations (Selwyn et al.,
2005: 7).
Comprehensive data on wider stratifications of income, education and
occupation among older internet users are hard to find, given the dearth
of research. Still, published surveys suggest some older citizens are more
likely than others in their age group to use new online media. Selwyn
et al. (2003, 2005), in their study of a cohort of UK adults, found using
computers stratified by socioeconomic status and educational background,
with differences less pronounced in terms of respondents’ gender, as in North
American cross-population user surveys (Gebler, 2000; Rice and Katz, 2003).
Richardson et al. (2005) acknowledge that Seniornet clubs in New Zealand
have attracted relatively affluent, mainly white, educated people. Surveys
conducted since the late 1990s found members of the Seniornet network in
the USA notably literate and technically competent, typically white, suburban
and middle class (Ito et al., 2001: 16; Seniornet, 2004). Taken together,
survey data indicate internet access among older adults is currently stratified,

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with internet users more likely to come from the relatively affluent, educated
middle classes. This can be seen to mirror similar trends among younger
adult cohorts in the recent history of internet take-up (see Bucy, 2000).
Cross-generational survey analysis has moreover indicated that the centrality
of the internet to the daily lives of users does not correlate with age: ‘There
is nothing … that would suggest that the internet must be less important to
[older people] than to younger people’ (Loges and Jung, 2001: 557).
A minor body of qualitative studies into small samples of older internet
users has captured the diversity in their experience of new media. What many
retired adults value about learning and using the internet is advantages in
terms of sustaining connectedness with friends, family and the modern world,
as well as mental stimulation and constructive leisure (Richardson et al.,
2005; Sourbati, 2004). One direction in research examines communities of
interest and practice who share social, cultural and historical group contexts.
Kanayama (2003) observed older people in Japan using online message
boards to engage in supportive companionship relationships by sharing
stories and memories. Ito et al.’s (2001) study of Seniornet members in the
USA emphasizes the benefits of interaction, participation, affiliation and
cultural identification. These utilities derive from the social and interpersonal
dimensions of internet access and its value as a resource from which users
obtain information relating to their interests (see Kraut et al., 1999). In
short, qualitative studies have contributed insights into a range of uses
involving social exchange (primarily communication), a sense of affiliation
and belonging, and entertainment. These may not necessarily correspond to
policy claims of advantages in accessing e-government information services,
but are valued by older people as enhancements to their quality of life.
In light of research evidence showing that everyday practices of
engagement with new ICTs are embedded in complex social and
physiological circumstances (Riggs, 2004; Wyatt et al., 2002, 2005),
policy development must be cautious in attributing non-access and use to a
generational effect. Far from being a case of universally applicable benefits,
barriers and consequences, internet access is about access to a place people
feel they want to visit, as long as it seems relevant to their lives. From this
perspective, a question that can assist in identifying whether policy action
is required is whether personal use of new ICTs is useful in relation to
current activities (Haddon, 2000). Non-use of the internet can indicate its
irrelevance to older people’s lives. Another issue that merits policy attention
is whether internet access can be part of how many older people are dealing
with everyday problems; to borrow from Bakardjieva (2005: 195), ‘whether
their everyday lives will be changed for the better building on the possibilities
created by a new powerful technology’. From a policy perspective, inequality
in the opportunities to access internet-based services and the way it impinges

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 Sourbati: ‘It could be useful, but not for me at the moment’

on the possibilities afforded by individuals reflects not only differences in the

resources and circumstances of individuals, but also how political-economic
and institutional factors shape access to these resources. What matters is,
as Garnham (1999: 115) has pointed out, ‘the distribution of the social
resources that make access usable’. Following this line of thinking, promoting
opportunities to access would involve making available resources that affect
conditions of use and the utilities that can be gained.
Empirical studies examining the role of enabling social networks in
introducing new ICTs to ‘novices’ (Wyatt et al., 2005), including older
people (Haddon and Silverstone, 1996), and further supporting their use
have highlighted the importance of social relations in shaping access to
technologies (Warschauer, 2003). The roles of ‘warm’ and ‘local’ experts
(Bakardjieva and Smith, 2001; Clement and Shade, 2000, respectively)
can be especially pertinent to the debate on internet access and e-public
service provision. A ‘warm expert’ is understood as someone with a personal
relationship to a ‘novice’ who mediates between the specialized knowledge
and skills necessary to use new ICTs and the specific situation and needs
of a new user (Wyatt et al., 2005: 202). The notion (and value) of assisted
access to the internet allows for a consideration of the needs of (non-)users.
Access to the internet can be situated locally, within particular organizational
and community contexts. It can, for instance, be facilitated or constrained
by community workers in public libraries, day centres or care homes. The
remainder of this article grounds the discussion of locally situated media
access and use in an empirical investigation into internet access and use in
sheltered homes for older people.

STUDY DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS

The study looked into everyday practices and perceptions of media use in
two sheltered accommodation complexes in London, UK3 housing older
retirees using health and social care services. Universal access to health care
services and social security benefits is a right for all UK citizens who, if
assessed to be in need of health care support, have the right to move into
sheltered homes.4 Fieldwork was conducted in 2002–03. The research was
designed as a small-scale exploratory study to measure the pulse of what
happens when internet access facilities become available in social care settings.
Using observational methods and qualitative interviews, it examined whether
and how internet access was introduced into daily life in sheltered homes
and what the views of the respondents were on the idea of accessing welfare
information and services online, for example through the NHS Direct
website or by ordering a repeat prescription or booking an appointment with
their doctor via email. One of the research sites was an extra care housing
complex which had a capacity of 50 self-contained flats and employed care

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staff on site on a 24-hour basis and made available networked computers that
tenants could use free of charge. Interested customers could join a weekly
internet club for basic computer and web browsing lessons. The club was
advertised by the housing trust as an enabling resource for tenants to facilitate
independent living, ‘to get more in control of their lives so that they didn’t
rely on other people coming in to help or give care’ (Daphne, community
support officer). At the time of the fieldwork, the club had been running for
18 months. During this period, four tenants had joined and used the facility
on a few occasions. The other site comprised 250 self-contained flats, did not
employ community support workers, other than wardens, and was not making
available a communal internet access facility at the time of the research.5 The
sample of respondents comprised 18 tenants and six care professionals.

STUDY FINDINGS
Interviews with older tenants
Getting to know about the internet: encounters, experiences and expectations All
except three frail home-centred participants had heard about the internet
from relatives and friends, through announcements in the sheltered homes,
community day centres and local libraries as well as through television and
the press. Many knew about free computer training in the community.
Six participants had experienced being online at least once: two at the
internet club run by the housing trust, one at the local UK Online centre
and two during visits to their friends and relatives. One respondent owned
a networked computer and was regularly online at home. Another two,
who had some experience of using computers, were very keen to connect
to the internet. All respondents who had tried the internet or wished to do
so had family relations and friends who were online. Encouragement from
family, friends and community support workers played an important role in
generating their interest in trying the internet.
The mode of access and its experience by participants varied across the
sample. Four respondents had logged on to the internet on a few occasions
with assistance from community support workers or younger relatives. Their
first experience of the internet was also their first encounter with a computer.
Rosalynn and John, from the extra care housing complex which ran the
internet club, had been invited to join by their keyworker. At the time of the
research, they were learning how to type a password and use a browser to
get online. They pointed out that, even with encouragement and assistance,
learning to use the computer was, to them, far from straightforward: ‘I find
it very awkward at the moment’ ( John, 83); ‘It’s totally new to me and I’m
having some problems grasping it’ (Rosalynn, 80).
Five participants from the housing complex that did not run a communal
internet facility had learned basic computer skills during their later

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employment or after retirement. Those tenants were younger than most

in the sample, had heard about the internet ‘through the television and the
media’ and through friends and family, were aware of free computer training
schemes in local libraries and were generally embracing the idea of home
internet access with enthusiasm: ‘I go to friends’ houses and they’ve got it,
you know … I’d love one of them at home, you know’ (Nancy, 66); ‘I’d
love to be able to do everything on the computer’ (Joe, 67).
Vera, the only participant who was routinely online, had familiarized
herself with computers at work, bought her first computer after retiring
in 1996 and made her first subscription to an internet service provider in
2001. She explained that her decision to buy a computer and subscribe to
an internet service provider was a matter of maintaining her lifestyle and her
involvement in her social environment:
Once I left work, I thought it might be nice to have a computer. And so, I’ve
got a very good friend who helped me sort of choose it and set it up for me.
And then after, I think it was a colleague of [my boyfriend] said, ‘God, you
haven’t got an email address’ and I thought, ‘well, yes, this is rather
old-fashioned’, so then I got that. I think most people I come across are linked
up to the net, so in that sense, one feels quite up-to-date, you know. (Vera, 70)

The participants’ views of the internet tended to be generally positive.

The internet was variously perceived by those who had either tried it or
wanted to do so as a form of entertainment, a source of information, a means
of communication, an opportunity to meet new people, keep up-to-date and
in touch with modern times.
Margaret, who had joined up for free computer learning sessions in her
local library, explained what she would like to learn and do online: ‘I’d like
to select books on the computer. And send photographs’ (Margaret, 76).
The older and more frail participants who had an occasional go on a
networked computer, with assistance from community support workers or
close relatives, saw the internet as potentially useful – though not necessarily
to them – mainly as social communication and in pursuing their leisure
interests. John explained that despite feeling overwhelmed by the computer,
he was joining the internet club out of curiosity and found the internet
interesting: ‘I’d rather use it as a gimmick … I’ve [exchanged emails] with my
nephew. He’s on the internet. I’m not interested professionally as such … It
could be useful, but not for me at the moment’ (John, 83).
The participants who were very keen to access the internet, but had not
yet experienced being online, were enthusiastic about what they thought
of as its life-improving potential. They tended to have high expectations
regarding the benefits to their quality of life. To them, the internet
represented an opportunity to engage with new forms of leisure, a form of
companionship, an opportunity to meet and communicate with other users

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and to maintain contact with modern society: ‘I would love to be able to

use the internet … I’d use it as entertainment, I could tap into information,
companionship. Rather than me sitting at home lonely’ (Nancy, 66); ‘What
it offers is amazing, you know … Life here would improve vastly …’
(Tom, 77); ‘Well, it’s great! For fun, to get in touch with new people, find
out about new things … I mean, people spend hours on the bloody thing,
don’t they?’ (Joe, 67).
Vera had been using her dial-up connection primarily to exchange emails
with friends and for her voluntary work: ‘I use email a lot, I usually sort of
check it at least once a day’ (Vera, 70). A few months before the interview,
she started using a web browser after being prompted by a radio programme:
There was a programme [on Radio 3] and they gave this address out and said
that, if you’re on the net, you can access it. So I did. I thought it was wonderful.
I was so thrilled. They had all this sort of information – four programmes on
baroque opera – I thought, God, this is just marvellous. (Vera, 70)

Accessing welfare service information online The majority of tenants who

participated in the research felt alienated by the idea of online access to
care-related services. The more frail participants who were using home care
support services could neither conceive nor accept the idea of accessing
health- and care-related information and support online. The online transfer
of prescriptions or the booking of an appointment with their doctor was not
something they felt they needed or wished to do. These respondents pointed
out that their carers were already arranging for them to access these services:
‘My carer, she collects [my medicine] from the pharmacist’s’ (Rosalynn, 80);
‘Have you got anything to worry about, you can tell [the district nurse].
And she arranges to see a doctor’ (Arthur, 80).
The younger, more recently retired tenants were at best ambivalent
about the possibility of accessing online health care-related information.
These participants tended to think of online access to services as a substitute
for human interaction and social contact and a defence against isolation: ‘It’s
sort of cutting off something social – that you go out’ (Vera, 70). At the same
time, a few participants appreciated online access to health advice and support
as potentially beneficial for homebound users.
Bob, an architect who had familiarized himself with computers, but not
yet with the internet, could envisage a future where online access to care
service information and support enabled frail service users to overcome
mobility-related barriers, provided they were able to use the systems: ‘I think
the [online] booking of appointments and delivery of prescriptions would be
an excellent service to be used … when you’re ill and you have that ability to
ask for help’ (Bob, 75).

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Interviews with staff

Internet access and electronic service delivery in social care settings The staff sample
comprised three frontline community support officers (CSOs) who were
involved in health care provision and three senior staff members. All the
participants in the staff sample were working at the extra care site, which ran
the communal internet facility, and all had acquired basic word processing
skills through formal work-based training. At the time of the interviews, one
of the three CSOs participating in the study had not developed any web-
browsing skills and had no experience of internet access, like most of her
colleagues working in frontline care provision: ‘Most of the frontline staff
don’t feel comfortable and they don’t know how to use the computer well
enough yet’ ( Julia, senior officer). The senior office-based staff were using
the Housing Trust’s intranet on a daily basis to contact other departments and
business stakeholders and would occasionally search the web for specialized
information and advice.
Although none of the staff interviewed considered internet access to be
a priority in the day-to-day operation of sheltered homes, those who were
using the internet at work foresaw longer-term benefits, including efficiency
gains in the provision of care support. Office-based staff appreciated that
online provision of health care-related information and services could
contribute to an improvement in the delivery of care support to older
tenants. They appreciated, for example, the potential of online access to
medicine prescriptions in economizing on staff time and contributing towards
a reduction in the rate of mistakes in health care service administration: ‘It
would be a way forward to save time and make it simpler … be more precise,
avoid mistakes’ ( Julia, senior officer).
However, they pointed out that shortages in skilled care workers, time
constraints and inherited work cultures inhibited usage of online resources:
‘[T]here are a lot of good services out there, but accessing them is still
missing’ (Julia, senior officer); ‘Staff are encouraged to log on the internet,
but to be fair with them, they don’t have enough time … As a whole, we
lack resources to improve people’s quality of life in sheltered accommodation’
(Sarah, management team); ‘There isn’t a culture of people going into their
office in this work and switching on their PC to use the internet’ (Paul,
senior officer). Zoe, a frontline worker who was using the internet at home,
also anticipated time management gains: ‘It would be great if we could do
repeat prescriptions over the net because that would save a lot of time and
effort’ (Zoe, CSO). But Lorna was dubious about the idea of ordering repeat
prescriptions online, as she could not see any practical returns: ‘I don’t see
how that’s going to save time, I don’t know’ (Lorna, CSO).

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Benefits to older service users A divergence in the views of staff was also
evident in their perceptions of benefits to service users (their older clients).
Frontline and office-based staff tended to adopt different perspectives in
their appreciation of the benefits potentially available to older residents. The
internet club instructor’s view was that to frail older people who were not
familiar with computers, the internet presented opportunities for leisure and
as a learning activity. Drawing on her experience with older tenants, she felt
that involvement in learning basic computer skills and the assisted use of a
networked computer could be stimulating activities in themselves: ‘[Clients]
are just happy if they can just manage to turn a computer on and type in the
password and then getting to control the mouse’ (Daphne, CSO). Senior staff
tended to take a longer-term view of the internet as a resource that enhanced
older residents’ choice of content relating to personal interests, hobbies and
identities: ‘Tenants could gain information-wise, have contact with friends
from their generation. I mean, [later] generations will come downstairs and
use the facilities’ (Sarah, management team).
Although all participants identified barriers to internet access deriving from
the lack of computer skills and a lack of practical support to assist older users,
staff who were using the internet at work and in their home did not see
advanced age as a factor that determined (non-)interest in new services. As
Paul commented:
I mean, there’s nothing different about me experiencing the internet than
someone who’s in their eighties, provided they can use the equipment and
that they, you know, as in anybody that’s coming new to particular sort of
technology, that there are people supporting you to use it.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Interviews reinforced the findings of previous studies about the role of
friends and family in generating interest among non-users to try the internet.
Fieldwork also demonstrated that the availability of networked equipment,
information about it and provision of basic computer skills training do not
necessarily make internet access part of people’s everyday practices, suggesting
that inequalities in use can be more persistent and difficult to resolve than
those of access to technologies (see Rice, 2002). Considerable diversity
emerged in the sample of older people who were using care support in terms
of the media skills they had developed, their mode of engagement with new
media and their underlying perceptions and attitudes. The experiences of
tenants, albeit limited for most of the participants, indicated the dynamic
nature of internet access (see Livingstone, 2003: 7) where the conditions
of access, the expectations of users and their perceptions of its relevancy or
usefulness were altered through their engagement with the internet. Vera, the

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 Sourbati: ‘It could be useful, but not for me at the moment’

only tenant in the sample who was routinely online, integrated internet access
into her daily routine gradually by drawing on her interests, getting practical
help, encouragement and advice from friends, and further cultivated her
skills through use. Tom, Joe and Nancy, who had developed basic computer
skills, showed enthusiasm about the prospect of using the internet, but had
no clear idea of what internet access entailed and tended to have rather high
expectations of its benefits. John and Rosalynn, who had given the internet
a try, found engagement with networked computers to be a potentially
interesting pastime activity, but needed practical assistance to engage further
with it.
Interviews with staff indicated a divergence in their views on what is to
be gained from introducing internet access to sheltered homes. Frontline
CSOs would not necessarily expect benefits in online access to health care
information or the electronic transfer of medicine prescriptions. Senior staff
did appreciate the potential of internet access in enhancing the delivery of
care-related information services. This finding shows the expectations
of staff in organizations concerned with social care provision and their
appreciation of online access to reflect qualitative differences in the skills
and literacies associated with different professional roles. Welfare workers
concerned with direct service provision in the UK are currently significantly
less likely to have access to networked computers than those in administration
(Harlow, 2003).
In light of these findings, age cannot be seen as the only, or even the main,
cultural experience to determine engagement with internet technologies.
Both a lack of new media skills and a perception of the irrelevance of
internet access to the daily practices of information seeking and access to
care support were reported by older tenants and younger care workers
alike. Likewise, both the older tenants and the younger staff saw in internet
access opportunities for recreational activities and social communication that
could potentially improve quality of life in sheltered homes. In addition, all
respondents in the study appreciated contact with carers and found their role
in enabling frail clients to access social care support as indispensable. These
findings imply that for digitally excluded groups who are ‘major users of
public services’, such as frail people living in sheltered homes, opportunities
to access the internet will be defined, at least in the short and medium
term, by measures that address barriers at the local organizational level. The
facilitation of access to e-government services for vulnerable welfare service
users would require investment in human capital. Community support
workers can assist frail older people who do not possess the skills required
to access the internet by acting as ‘proxy’ users (Selwyn et al., 2005: 19) or
intermediaries (Wyatt et al., 2005: 212) with regard to contacting others

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New Media & Society 11(7)

electronically, accessing information and services and helping them to

understand the relevance of this information to their own situation.
In conclusion, this exploratory study highlighted tensions between lived
social realities and prevailing generalizations that consider age to be the most
important influence in ICT adoption and usage, frame engagement with the
internet in terms of a generation gap and define older age as the problem.
The research reinforced evidence that popular ways of distinguishing between
‘digitally divided’ younger users and older non-users are simplistic and can
be wrong. Furthermore, this study indicated that e-public service provision
and any objectives to realize universal internet access can be constrained by
barriers operating at the local organizational level. In the example of social
care establishments these comprise staff shortages and gaps in media skills.
Gaps in the new media literacies of frontline workers reflect (and reproduce)
structural inequalities in internet access and further augment barriers that may
be specific to the circumstances of older welfare service users.
Technology use is embedded locally. If the use of electronic public
services is to be encouraged, service users’ engagement with online digital
media needs to be supported. For this to be done, e-government policy
development should adopt a user perspective integrating research insights into
users, their situations and individual responses to the circumstances they face.
At a more fundamental level, policy action is required to ensure that service
users are not deprived of levels of access to public services they currently
have. As a first step, additional support needs to be made available to those
people whose ability to use an online service to their benefit is conditional
upon it. In a social care context, at least in societies with a tradition of welfare
service provision, it is professional carers that can perform a gatekeeping
role in introducing older clients to new services, not least because – and it is
important not to forget this – professional carers may be the only relationship
with another human being that some isolated, frail older people have.
The reported study set out to explore relationships that have recently
begun to receive research attention. One interesting area for further research
concerns the diversity of experience among older people who may be of
similar chronological age to improve our understanding of how age intersects
with other social and cultural markers that may shape internet use. Related
to this is a need for qualitative research into intergenerational samples as an
alternative to the tendency to see age as the sole factor determining older
people’s engagement with new media. Furthermore, the current policy
emphasis on internet connectivity calls for approaches that centre on the
multifaceted nature of internet access. This would require research attention
into how the circumstances, needs and expectations of individual users are
shaped historically and can be situated and mediated at the local institutional
level in places other than the school or workplace.

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 Sourbati: ‘It could be useful, but not for me at the moment’

Acknowledgements
The research on which this article is based was funded by the Joseph Rowntree
Foundation (project code 2658113), whose support is gratefully acknowledged. I am
also grateful to Marike Van Harskamp, Flis Henwood, Alan Lovell and two anonymous
reviewers.

Notes
1 E-government literature in the UK and EU does mention pilot programmes
undertaken at local authority level with partners from the voluntary and private sector.
Notably, 28 such initiatives in the context of Better Government for Older People
projects across England in 1998–99 set out to promote ICT use among older citizens
through free ‘taster’ sessions and older people’s festivals. Yet these were not followed
up by sustained nationwide action. It is characteristic that the major Office of the
Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) initiative, Inclusion through Innovation, which aims
to realize ‘benefits of social inclusion through the use of ICT’, only makes reference
to ‘vulnerable older people’ in relation to plans to implement telecare services at local
authority level (see ODPM, 2005: 70).
2 There are sharp distinctions across the EU, with pensioners living in Nordic countries
more likely to use the internet.
3 See Sourbati (2004) for a full report and discussion of findings.
4 These services are provided under Section 45 of the National Health Service and
Community Care Act 1990, which places a duty on local authorities in England
and Wales to make arrangements to provide services promoting the welfare of older
people.
5 The facility was eventually withdrawn, we were told, as the housing scheme could not
meet the cost of connection.

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MARIA SOURBATI is senior lecturer at the School of Arts and Media, University of Brighton.
Her current research centres on the intersection of media policy and social policy, media and
ICT access regulation and universality in electronic public service provision.
Address: Watts Building, University of Brighton, Lewis Road, Moulsecoomb, Brighton BN2 4GJ,
UK. [email: m.sourbati@brighton.ac.uk]

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