Ms Mary Murphy:

We estimate 65% of people aged over 65 are digitally excluded. That is an easy figure to remember. It is made up of two elements, namely not having technical devices or Internet in the home and having below-basic levels of digital skills. With regard to how to support older persons to engage more meaningfully with online media, part of that response will be a broader policy ask that may be directly to the media sector and that is greater supports for older persons for lifelong learning, and supports for organisations that deliver digital learning to older persons. Age Action delivers a service to older persons to give them skills but there are limitations on how we can do that. That is one area of it.

On the media, there may be three areas, which are accessibility, affordability and confidence. Accessibility relates to how media such as websites and apps are designed. Are they in line with guidelines on accessibility for people who may have a tremor in their hand or poor eyesight or hearing? Affordability can often be the barrier for older persons in engaging with new technology, for example, buying devices or getting WiFi and ensuring there are not significant financial barriers to engaging with this media. Confidence is the final point. As I have said quite often, older persons can lack basic digital skills and are aware of this. Even if they have the skills there is the stereotype of older persons as being technologically inept. That can be portrayed in a negative way. We see that older persons can have higher levels of suspicion or lower levels of trust in information they encounter online. That could be because they do not trust themselves to engage with media online because they have been told that there is a great deal of risk associated with that. We need to train older persons to better engage with information online and identify misinformation. That goes to a recommendation about having media literacy initiatives that reach out and target older persons effectively.

The other side of this is that this should never be about pressuring older persons to engage with the media. If people have lived their whole lives engaging with media in a certain way and they have a way of life they like and that works for them, and they are able to take care of themselves in that way of life, we cannot take that way of life away from them. Ensuring that traditional forms of media are maintained as well is important so that older persons are not punished for not wanting to engage with online media.