In December 2020, as a result of a module paper in Part 1 of my PhD programme, I made a policy recommendation to the Director-General of the Central Statistics Office in Ireland:
At a policy level, consideration should be given to collecting and publishing statistical data at a national level on ICT usage by households for all age ranges including over 75 years.
Flynn, 2020.
As early as February 2021 I saw an entry for this cohort in the Eurostat query that I infrequently consult for my research. It was a small number for the 75+ age cohort with a low reliability flag but it was a start. ‘What gets measured gets managed” (Klaus, 2015, p. 81), a quote attributed to Peter Drucker seems appropriate.
Towards the end of January 2022 I happened across a two-part report by Nicole Glennon in the Irish Examiner (fondly known as the Cork Examiner to many of us!) entitled: Ageing in the pandemic. I read with interest the experiences reported by the interview participants and then stopped in my tracks when I saw this:
Recent research by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) suggests that almost half of Irish residents aged 75 or older have never been on the internet
(Glennon, 2022)
Now how did I miss this? I follow CSO Ireland on Twitter and would surely have spotted such an important piece of data, wouldn’t I? Well, perhaps not, being Twitter. I scrolled back through the tweets and found this one from 14 December, 2021 with the headline: “More than one third of daily internet users are almost constantly online” (CSO, 2021). Hmmm…The infographic didn’t mention anything about older adults:
Undeterred I clicked through and landed on the press pages and the heading: “Internet Coverage and Usage in Ireland 2021.” This looked promising, at last data for Internet usage of the 75+ age group. Well, not exactly since the statistical release consisted of the tweet infographic above. Oh well, let’s see what the press statement had to say about this age cohort. Nothing in the bullet points:
Okay, all interesting and important data but what about the 75+ age cohort? Time to try a different tactic – a Google search for ‘cso ireland data on internet use’ is more promising, landing on Information Society Statistics – Households 2019 > Frequency of Internet Usage – from here I could locate the 2021 data and yes, the 75+ age cohort appears:
Highlighted in yellow with red, bold font, one of the reasons for my PhD research…
Until next time, Sandra
Featured image courtesy of Centre for Ageing Better Age positive image library
References:
Frequency of Internet Usage – CSO – Central Statistics Office. CSO.ie. (2022). Retrieved 28 January 2022, from https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-isshict/internetcoverageandusageinireland2021/frequencyofinternetusage/.
Flynn, S. (2020). Bridging the age-based digital divide: an intergenerational exchange during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown period in Ireland [Unpublished paper].
Glennon, N. (2022). Ageing in the pandemic: ‘I feel I lost two years, and it’s difficult to make up for those years’. Irish Examiner. Retrieved 28 January 2022, from https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-40791231.html.
Klaus P. (2015) The Devil Is in the Details – Only What Get Measured Gets Managed. In: Measuring Customer Experience. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137375469_7
Sandra Flynn 