Tech users today span all ages. Published at around the same time as the AARP Tech Trends Survey, Linkage Connect’s Technology Use Among Older Adults stands alone as a surveyor of tech adoption among the oldest. In fact, 66% of their responses came from adults aged 75-89, the majority of whom are women, many living independently in senior living communities. Similar to the AARP survey, 93% of responders own a smartphone, mostly an iPhone. When 66% of the responders to a survey, mostly online, some paper, are aged 75-89, it makes one pause and consider what this means in the world of technology marketing.
They buy what everyone buys and use what everyone uses. First, based on smartphones, streaming, texting, they are part of the mainstream of technology use. As these individuals aged, they took their interest in technology with them. They use technology that delivers something to them, not just because it is cool or new. This survey plus the AARP document signals the end of so-called AgeTech, an insulting and narrow-cast term linked, ironically, to an ever-broader set of software and devices, many of them health-related. And remember, Digital Health (and health tech) predates ‘AgeTech’ by many years.
AARP talks about tech ‘making aging easier’ – wrong goal. Not making aging easier -- AARP should put its considerable lobbying influence toward making tech easier to use, more intuitive, more accessible, even standardized. They should help the tech industry grasp the implications of 73 million baby boomers beginning to turn 80 in January of 2026. They should finally figure out that the ‘accessibility’ features, mandated by law, should be exposed to everyone, part of devices and software that they already own. AARP should drop the 50+ segment, which is just like the 40+ segment, start thinking about the 65+ population as a series of differentiated age segments – in the same way the teen years are nothing like the 40’s. Tech to mitigate specific limitations and disabilities (not ‘AgeTech’) should be categorized as such, whether it is vision, hearing, mobility, dexterity, or smart wheelchair cushions.
End the absurdity of the so-called 50+ category. As the Linkage survey does, age segmentation can be a start at understanding. What is relevant in the upper age ranges? Mobility? Effective exercise? Wellness tech? Finding intellectual challenges and learning new skills? In fact, the upper age ranges may be all service marketers are going to be thinking about as the boomers (who have all the money) age into their 80s at a rate of 10,000 per day for the next 20 years. Life expectancy at 65 for men and especially women averages in the mid-80s, independent of chronic disease and it’s getting longer. When the first boomers turned 65, pharmacies quietly widened the aisles, brightened the lights and added chairs in the pharmacy waiting area. As the baby boomers age into their 80s, what is the current equivalent? What should tech designers, service providers, and retailers (on and offline) do to make these the years of thriving and not of decline?
