Older Adult Use of Technology

A new AGE-WELL poll conducted by Environics Research in July 2020 shows that two-thirds (65%) of Canadians aged 65 and older now own a smartphone, compared to 58% in 2019, and most who own one (83%) use it daily.

During the pandemic, seniors have increased their use of video calls to communicate with family and friends. About a quarter (23%) of Canadians 65+ now use video-calling on their smartphones, twice as many as in 2019; 6 in 10 of whom report increased use due to COVID-19.

When it comes to social media, so popular with a younger demographic, older adults are populating the platforms too. Over one-third (37%) say they use social media to communicate with family and friends (of whom 4 out of 10 reports utilizing it more as a mode of communication due to COVID-19). Compared to 2019, they are more present on YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook (which 68% now use, up from 63% in 2019).

And with many seniors staying at home more during COVID-19, two in 10 (19%) of Canadians 65+ are using online shopping for essential items, like groceries, for “health, wellness and/or independence” (of whom 6 in 10 reports utilizing it more due to COVID-19).

The survey results show that 72% of Canadians aged 65 and over feel confident using current technology. How about you? Confident?

If you are a Baby Boomer, when you view the statistics, there is no surprise, we know we are not technophobic. Most of us are unfazed by technology, and they are using a lot of it during these challenging times,” I am seeing many of my friends and other older adults using more technology, and COVID-19 was clearly a catalyst that is taking tech use to a new level.

When should I retire?

When should I retire is by itself a simple question. Yet, it is a difficult question to answer. Some of us, like myself, made an impulsive decision and acted on it. Sometimes that is the best course of action, in my case, it was not. I retired on a Friday and was rehired the following Monday on a part-time basis. I worked for another 8 years before I finally retired full-time.

Others when they are considering retirement look closely at the economic decisions related to retirement. They look at labour supply, savings rate, insurance coverage, medical needs and their spending habits.

When planning to retire, some people consider how long they expect to live. Advancement in the science of ageing has meant that there has been a rapid increase in the understanding of genetic variation that contributes to longevity-related traits and diseases. In addition, this information is becoming increasingly available to patients and consumers.

Retirement is a period of life where we start to decline in our overall health and stamina and if we want to work, labour opportunities become more limited. To avoid poverty, we work hard over our life to avoid poverty during our old age, by making economic decisions based partly on how long we expect to live.

It is almost impossible to predict how long an individual might live. But here are some factors that may affect your expected longevity. Health status, sex, demographics and lifestyle, and psychological aspects such as optimism have been shown to affect how long a person might live. Importantly. it has been shown that both expected longevity and self-rated health are relatively accurate and complementary predictors of actual longevity. It also has been shown that we tend to update our expectations in case of health shocks and newly acquired health information. As we plan for retirement, we reflect on our health arid its influence on our longevity and on our financial situation.

There has been some research that shows that genetic differences have been estimated to explain up to 25-30% of the overall variation in longevity. To some extent, family history can be used to infer a measure of genetic risk, but an individual would only know the true risk by undergoing a comprehensive genetic screening. This is a long way off, but one day a person will be able to get a series of comprehensive genetic tests that will allow them to make a safe prediction about how long they will live. The question is would you want this information?

 

Stay at Home Living App

An app created by two South Surrey residents has found national success in its ability to easily keep seniors connected, entertained and healthy amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

 Around this time last year, Carolyn Glazier and Barry Jones watched as the pandemic kept British Columbia’s senior citizens from seeing their loved ones. Not ones to stand idly by, they created what is now the Stayhome-Living app. Now being used by seniors anywhere from B.C. to the Maritimes, the app’s rapid growth can be attributed to its simplicity and relevance to some of the country's most vulnerable people.

 Early on Barry Jones saw the isolating effect the pandemic had on his senior parents, watching how their social circles disintegrated as restrictions came down.

 “You could just sort of see that it was really impacting them in such a negative way,” Jones said. "We just realized they needed a tool to help them stay connected."

Knowing that many seniors had at least some access to technology like a laptop or tablet, the goal was to pull various technology needs under one virtual, but quite literal, “roof.” 

Working with Carolyn Glazier's father Tom Waters, a retired tech executive, they designed the app around the front of a small house. The various windows of the simple design serve as the entry points to the app’s curated content. 

Zoom, email, social media sites and other communication tools are contained within a window marked "Connect" while food delivery services can be found behind the window marked “Services.” Free streaming services like CBC Gem and HGTV can be found under the entertainment window and various games along with guided fitness classes like chair yoga are behind the “Activities” window. 

The simple and down-home feel of the app is one of its most attractive aspects to seniors Glazier says recalling a user who found comfort in the layout. 

"One of our beta testers early on actually got COVID and she was really unwell,” Glazier said. “She was really drawn to the house because it felt safe and easy to navigate."

"Now that she's getting stronger and healthier she's doing the seated yoga class three times a week and just loving it," Glazier added.

Having seen success after the beta test, the app has expanded from where it started in South Surrey and White Rock to more of the Lower Mainland and Metro Vancouver, then the Sunshine Coast and into Northern Alberta.

"We're in pretty much all the provinces," Glazier said. "That's our bigger push now is to extend the reach and have our content over a pan-Canadian nature."

As the app expanded, so did the creativity of the people using it. Some users have started doing virtual date nights through the app’s drone tours of cities around the world. A date might include taking a cooking class in the rolling hills of Tuscany, Italy and then taking a helicopter ride over New York City.

“It feels great really. Knowing just that, we are positively impacting people's lives and helping out at a time when the battle is the greatest," Jones said. "We are trying to bring technology to seniors and it doesn't come naturally, it's not second nature to a lot of them but what we're finding is they've got this fantastic sort of 'give it a go' mentality."

As for the future of Stayhome-Living, the pair says there are big plans ahead for the app and some proprietary software will be coming at a later date. Jones mentioned there could be a premium version launched that would offer more interactivity but the free version will always be available.

To download or learn more about the Stayhome-Living app you can check out the app's website.https://www.stayhome-living.com/dev/ 

Transition to retirement

Planning for retirement is very important, or so the experts tell us. If you do a search for planning for retirement you get many results that deal with the financial circumstances of retirement. When I did a search, I found five pages of Google results before I found one page that mentioned planning for life after retirement, not just planning for enough money after retirement.

Retirement is a major life course transition for which some people plan more than others. As planning positively affects the adjustments you have to make when you retire, understanding that planning to have enough money is important, it is not the only thing that is important. When planning you can find a lot of material on how to be financial prepared but there is not much on the activities you can do or plan to do in retirement. A recent study found that retirement activities can be categorized into three types: transformative leisure, bridge employment, and interpersonal leisure.

Moreover, these plans are affected by people’s opportunities, time perception, and partner support for these activities.

Bridge employment is one that many retirees think that they would like to, or must, take on. Bridge employment is meant to help someone make the adjustment to retirement from working. It is a big jump from working 40 plus hours a week to working zero hours a week. So, bridge employment can help. In my circle of friends, we all did some bridge employment. Most of us did this for between six and eight years, before settling into full time retirement. Bridge employment is not for everyone and my research shows that between 30 and 40 percent of us take on bridge employment.

Interpersonal leisure is the time we spend with friends and family. During the last two years this type of leisure has been take away from many of us and we are looking forward to being able to see friends, go out to dinner with friends, or take in a sport activity with friends, to see grandchildren and other members of our family. It is an important aspect of our quality of life.

Transformational leisure is something that very few of us take on. This leisure may mean taking a course, skydiving, completing that degree, volunteering or travelling to places we have on our bucket list. It is, for some a luxury they cannot afford and for others it is a luxury they cannot afford to miss out on.