Looking out toward the future – what trends matter most? The lack of broadband access among older adults is worrisome in these days of online-only vaccine registration. In years past, getting older adults online was a lower priority for senior advocates, social service agencies or healthcare organizations. News organizations rarely discussed tech adoption among seniors. And survey frequency about Internet access had dwindled over a decade.Now even the Wall Street Journal tech writer searches ways to get elusive vaccine appointments scheduled for older friends and relatives. The New York Times notes that some older adults don’t have computers. When the 2022 surveys of broadband access for the 65+ are published, will the numbers be much higher? New government efforts are underway to offer cheaper broadband -- will older adults participate? Stay tuned. Here are four blog posts from February 2021:
Time for the Market Overview Technology for Aging 2021. It’s a new year and the baby boomers turn 75. It took the combination of 73 million boomers, a pandemic emergency, and the sheer size of the aging population to transform a 2009 market niche into this 2021 market category worthy of investment-- less about products specifically designed for older adults as it is about the marketing of many existing offerings as useful to them. But this is January, 2021, in the time of Covid-19 and the time of the all-digital Consumer Electronics Show -- this time with at least 70,000 online attendees from around the world and the tech industry -- and so new companies are surfacing with technologies that will generate interest and even excitement during 2021. Learn more.
What is broadband and why should seniors want it? The buzz about broadband and older adults has grown louder since the start of the pandemic – which worsened social isolation for so many older adults. A just-released report sponsored by the Humana Foundation and OATS called Aging Connected, made the case that nearly 22 million seniors (age 65+) lack wireline broadband access at home. Not a surprise -- that follows other reports over the past year or two like Pew (2019), which noted that only 59% of the 53.7 million aged 65+ have home broadband. This new report has a point of view -- despite surveys that indicate that people use their smartphones (wireless versus "wireline") to access the Internet, truncated screens can be problematic. The report notes difficulty with financial and document management/editing – as well as limitations in using social networking and engagement technology. Issues have often been noted that act as barriers to accessing services like telehealth for example. In fact, lack of access to a portal for vaccine appointments has recently emerged as a new broadband divide.
RALEIGH, N.C., Jan. 26, 2021 — K4Connect, a mission-driven technology company that integrates the best in technology to serve and empower older adults and individuals living with disabilities, today announced partnerships with three leading content creators – Coro Health, CuriosityStream and Spiro100. All K4Connect customers will have access to these curated offerings delivered through K4Community Plus, the company’s advanced mobile and web application.