Published: February 23, 2021 | The Senior List Research Team
In our annual look at older adults’ use of digital tools and technology, we find that COVID-19 continues to spur record adoption of online grocery shopping and other online activities to stay close to loved ones or conduct activities previously done in person or at an office. And who knows… your latest TikTok follower may be a septuagenarian!
In April 2020, we surveyed a group of those 60 and older about how they’d been adopting various forms of technology and digital tools in the early stages of the pandemic. Now that almost a year has passed, it’s time to revisit that survey and find out how those 60 and older have settled into digital routines and how smooth the transition has been.
Read on for our full survey, and check out some of the key findings below:
- Older adults’ use of grocery delivery or on-demand meal delivery like DoorDash has nearly doubled in the past year, rising from 12 percent to 23 percent. The percentage of older adults watching a TikTok video in the past two weeks has more than doubled when compared to pre-pandemic habits (three percent to eight percent).
- About 15 percent of older men use the internet to trade stocks, compared to just two percent of their female counterparts.
- COVID-19 was the biggest reason (61 percent) seniors cited for increasing their use of digital or online tools.
- Only 15 percent of respondents said adapting to new technologies was “extremely” or “very” challenging.
Most Online Activities Rise
When thinking about their lives pre-pandemic, older Americans were more likely to engage in almost all of the 13 online activities we asked about, which include those related to work, shopping, communication, and more.
The biggest shift was when it came to ordering meals or grocery delivery online. Only about 12 percent of respondents said they ordered food this way before the pandemic, but today that number stands at 23 percent, or almost double pre-pandemic levels. Similarly, older adults are twice as likely today as before COVID-19 to watch TikTok videos, though this also coincides with a broader surge in the use of the app by all age groups.
| Older Americans’ online technology/digital tool usage, past two weeks vs. pre-pandemic | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Activity | Past two weeks | Pre-pandemic | YoY Growth |
| Downloaded a new app | 29% | 25% | +16% |
| Joined a Facebook Group | 11% | 8% | +38% |
| Ordered food or grocery delivery online | 23% | 12% | +92% |
| Paid bills/made financial transactions online | 69% | 66% | +5% |
| Played a game online or via an app | 42% | 38% | +11% |
| Posted an Instagram Story | 2% | 2% | — |
| Shopped online | 70% | 65% | +8% |
| Signed up for a new service online | 6% | 4% | +50% |
| Traded stocks online | 8% | 7% | +14% |
| Used a new video conferencing app | 4% | 2% | +100% |
| Watched a video on TikTok | 8% | 3% | +167% |
| Worked from home on a company computer | 7% | 4% | +75% |
| Worked from home on a personal computer | 18% | 12% | +5% |
Older women are more likely than older men to report having used various digital or online tools recently, with a few notable exceptions. Men are several times more likely to use the internet to trade stocks (15 percent vs. two percent), and they’re much more likely to use either a company or personal computer to work from home.
| Older Americans’ online technology/digital tool usage, past two weeks, by gender | ||
|---|---|---|
| Activity | Women | Men |
| Downloaded a new app | 30% | 28% |
| Joined a Facebook Group | 12% | 8% |
| Ordered food or grocery delivery online | 26% | 20% |
| Paid bills/made financial transactions online | 69% | 70% |
| Played a game online or via an app | 47% | 35% |
| Posted an Instagram Story | 2% | 3% |
| Shopped online | 72% | 69% |
| Signed up for a new service online | 5% | 7% |
| Traded stocks online | 2% | 15% |
| Used a new video conferencing app | 4% | 5% |
| Watched a video on TikTok | 8% | 8% |
| Worked from home on a company computer | 5% | 9% |
| Worked from home on a personal computer | 14% | 23% |
Most of the popular online activities for older adults remained at levels similar to our findings in 2020, though when we first asked older Americans about their online habits, 77 percent said they’d used these tools to do their banking, and today that’s just 69 percent. However, respondents to our latest survey indicated they were more likely to bank online today compared to before the pandemic, and it’s possible that many seniors have grown so accustomed to banking online that they no longer think of it as something new.
The majority of respondents indicated that compared to 2020, they are doing more online communication and online financial transacting. However, women were more likely in both cases to say their frequency of these activities has climbed.
| Percentage indicating frequency of online activity has risen, by gender | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Activity | Women | Men | All |
| Financial transactions | 57% | 46% | 52% |
| Communication | 57% | 51% | 54% |
Note: Respondents saying they’re doing “a little more” or “a lot more” of online financial activity and online communication
Those living in suburban and urban settings were the most likely to say they’ve rapidly accelerated their use of online transactions and communication. About one in four suburbanites say they’re doing “a lot more” online transactions compared with 14 percent of those in rural areas. About 28 percent of people in urban settings said they’re doing “a lot more” online communication compared to just 12 percent of people who live in semi-rural communities.
Pandemic Impact & Future Possibilities
Without a doubt, the pandemic and related restrictions have been the deciding factor in leading older adults to embrace the use of technology and online tools. When asked to list all factors related to their increased use of these technologies, 61 percent listed the pandemic.
| Factors motivating increased online/digital activity | |
|---|---|
| COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing | 61% |
| Emergence of new online services (such as doctors offering telehealth) | 16% |
| Greater awareness of online offerings | 14% |
| Friends/family recommendations | 12% |
| Changes in work environment | 11% |
| Purchase of new devices (phones, tablets, computers, etc) | 6% |
| Increase in ADA accessibility online | 0% |
The capacity for older adults to continue embracing technological tools may be high; nearly 60 percent of respondents said adjusting to increased use of technology hasn’t been challenging. Only 15 percent said these tools were “very challenging” or “extremely challenging,” though women were slightly more likely to report having trouble than men.
| Older adults’ rating of difficulty in adapting to digital or online activities, by gender | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Rating | Female | Male | All |
| Extremely challenging | 4% | 3% | 4% |
| Very challenging | 11% | 12% | 11% |
| Somewhat challenging | 29% | 25% | 27% |
| Not so challenging | 39% | 41% | 40% |
| Not at all challenging | 17% | 20% | 18% |
Conclusion
From wearing masks to rationing toilet paper, Americans have had to adjust to new ways of doing many things. For those at or near retirement age, the pandemic doesn’t appear to have dulled their ability to cope with change — perhaps the opposite is true.
Methodology
We surveyed 615 Americans 60 and older about which online- or technology-related activities they’d done in the past two weeks, how that compares with before the pandemic, and other questions related to the increased use of technology. The survey was conducted in February 2021.
