Silver surfers ride the digital learning wave

The proverb “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is bark­ing up the wrong tree in 2021. Record num­bers of baby boomers, aged between 57 and 75, and old­er retirees, includ­ing care home res­i­dents, are tak­ing advan­tage of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies to acquire nov­el skills and devel­op hob­bies. In droves, they are turn­ing on, log­ging in and not drop­ping out. 

The enforced lock­downs of the last year have accel­er­at­ed this trend. Sil­ver web surfers, unable to hug friends and fam­i­ly, have had the time, con­fi­dence and access to tech­nol­o­gy to embrace dig­i­tal learn­ing. Indeed, 41 per cent of peo­ple in the UK over 55 said they were com­fort­able learn­ing a new dig­i­tal skill dur­ing lock­down, accord­ing to BT research. 

More­over, old­er gen­er­a­tions are express­ing a greater thirst for knowl­edge when com­pared to younger cohorts. The 2020 LinkedIn Oppor­tu­ni­ty Index sug­gest­ed that not only are baby boomers more will­ing to wel­come change (84 per cent) than mil­len­ni­als (74 per cent) and mem­bers of Gen­er­a­tion Z (72 per cent), they are also more like­ly to invest time in learn­ing trans­fer­able skills (78 per cent) than the two oth­er groups (72 and 74 per cent, respec­tive­ly).

Rock­et­ing inter­est in online groups pro­vid­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of the Third Age (u3a), whose net­work has expand­ed to almost 500,000 old­er adults no longer work­ing full time, sup­ports this data. A year ago, with mem­bers forced to stay at home in an attempt to stem the spread of coro­n­avirus, the UK-wide char­i­ty, which cel­e­brates its 40th anniver­sary in 2022, piv­ot­ed online, estab­lish­ing Trust u3a. 

“We’ve been excit­ed to see huge num­bers of mem­bers embrac­ing dig­i­tal learn­ing and turn­ing to online and social media, some­times for the first time, to keep their inter­est groups going,” says Sam Mauger, chief exec­u­tive of u3a.

Online learning opens minds and virtual doors

Trust u3a’s online offer­ing has attract­ed hun­dreds of new mem­bers and spawned more than 80 online groups and cours­es, rang­ing from Japan­ese to birds of prey, from cook­ing to paint­ing. “Dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy has empow­ered us to keep learn­ing and active, and allowed us to remain con­nect­ed with one oth­er,” says Mauger. 

“Instead of meet­ing face to face, pho­tog­ra­phy groups can share images on What­sApp, ukulele play­ers have turned to Twitch to make music togeth­er and ball­room dancers are using Zoom to show off their moves.”

She plans to adopt a blend­ed learn­ing mod­el when lock­down restric­tions lift, as going dig­i­tal has opened minds and vir­tu­al doors. “It has removed geo­graph­i­cal bar­ri­ers and enabled mem­bers to expand their learn­ing and forge new rela­tion­ships across the move­ment, from Scot­land to Corn­wall,” she says.

Dis­cov­er­ing new inter­ests and friends is one of the biggest plus­es of dig­i­tal learn­ing for retirees, accord­ing to Aman­da Rose­warne, busi­ness psy­chol­o­gist and co-founder of the Pro­fes­sion­al Devel­op­ment Con­sor­tium, which accred­its online cours­es. “By learn­ing via live online class­es, you can inter­act with oth­ers who may also be feel­ing iso­lat­ed and lone­ly,” she says. 

Elder­ly stu­dents enjoy sev­er­al oth­er ben­e­fits. “Stud­ies show that learn­ing new things trig­gers sero­tonin release in the brain, which is akin to the effect of anti­de­pres­sants,” says Rose­warne. 

Fur­ther, a 2017 study for Age UK, Europe’s largest char­i­ty sup­port­ing old­er peo­ple, found that keep­ing the mind active can pre­vent age-relat­ed con­di­tions, such as demen­tia. Com­mit­ted learn­ing, rather than cross­words or sudoku puz­zles, is most effec­tive, though.

Thanks to a vari­ety of user-friend­ly devices and online cours­es, pick­ing up a lan­guage, for instance, has nev­er been eas­i­er or more con­ve­nient for retirees will­ing to enter the dig­i­tal class­room. 

Trust issues: beware scammers

Birm­ing­ham-based sep­tu­a­ge­nar­i­an John Bish­op has attend­ed a Greek class for years. Soon after his course went online in the autumn, with lessons con­duct­ed on Zoom, he “took the plunge” and bought a smart­phone. Tech­nol­o­gy is not all Greek to Bish­op now; all that is required to join his group is the click of a hotlink. “The ease of access and ease of use are key for my gen­er­a­tion when it comes to online learn­ing,” he says. “My advice is keep it sim­ple and pro­vide non-bot help.”

While Bish­op is delight­ed that his lessons can con­tin­ue online, he is look­ing for­ward to return­ing to in-per­son ses­sions. “Zoom is not supe­ri­or to live lessons,” he says. “Video con­fer­enc­ing requires more con­cen­trat­ed eye focus, because all you are see­ing is the screen rather than a room, and stu­dent inter­ac­tion is less flu­id. It also lacks the ancil­lary ben­e­fits, like the exer­cise of walk­ing to and from the class.”

Sarah-Jane McQueen, gen­er­al man­ag­er of CoursesOnline.co.uk, argues the con­ve­nience of online learn­ing is huge­ly appeal­ing to elder­ly stu­dents. “Rather than hav­ing to get up ear­ly and trav­el a size­able dis­tance to learn,” she says, “users can now get the same expe­ri­ence from the com­fort of their own home and at a time that suits them, allow­ing them to eas­i­ly bal­ance learn­ing around their dai­ly sched­ules.”

How­ev­er, McQueen notes the surg­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of online cours­es for retirees has not gone unno­ticed by those seek­ing to make quick mon­ey. “Par­tic­u­lar­ly since lock­down, there has been a rise in the num­ber of fraud­u­lent cours­es being offered by scam­mers who are look­ing to prof­it from people’s will­ing­ness to learn,” she warns. 

“To help address these con­cerns, providers should make a con­cert­ed effort to high­light the feed­back and reviews they’ve obtained from pre­vi­ous users that can work as tes­ti­mo­ni­als which assure new users they are legit­i­mate.”

Build­ing trust so old­er peo­ple feel com­fort­able online, and don’t get left in the wake of tech­nol­o­gy, is vital. Pleas­ing­ly, there is now a vast num­ber of online resources and ini­tia­tives designed to boost dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy among the elder­ly. For exam­ple, Bar­clays’ Dig­i­tal Eagles scheme, launched in 2013, has deliv­ered dig­i­tal skills train­ing to staff and res­i­dents in more than 500 UK care homes.

“There are many retirees who have achieved great things thanks to dig­i­tal learn­ing, often in fields that were per­haps far removed from what their pre­vi­ous careers encom­passed,” McQueen adds. 

Clear­ly, a more appo­site idiom for 2021 is “you are nev­er too old to learn” and, with easy-to-use dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy, there is no obsta­cle to becom­ing a very mature stu­dent.