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McCain Bucks Online Trend Among Seniors

Posted on: Monday, 21 July 2008, 13:08 CDT

Senator John McCain’s lack of Internet use has created a stir in the blogosphere, after the presumptive Republican presidential nominee referred to himself as “an [Internet] illiterate who has to rely on his wife for any assistance he can get”.  

When asked last week by the New York Times about his use of the Web, McCain replied that his aides "go on for me. I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself."

So just how Web savvy is the typical 71-year-old American?   

Statistically speaking, 35 percent of Americans over age 65 are online, according to data from the Pew Internet Project at the Pew Research Center.  However, after accounting for factors such as wealth, education and race, the figures look much different.

"About three-quarters of white, college-educated men age over 65 use the Internet," says Susannah Fox, director of the Pew Internet Project, told the Associated Press.

"John McCain is an outlier when you compare him to his peers," Fox said.

"On one hand, a U.S. senator has access to information sources and staff assistance that most people do not. On the other, the Internet has become such a go-to resource that it's a curiosity to hear that someone doesn't rely on it the way most Americans do."

A spokeswoman for Sen. McCain sought to clarify the perception of McCain as lacking Internet skills.

"He's fully capable of browsing the Internet and checking Web sites," Brooke Buchanan said, when contacted Friday by the Associated Press.

"He has a Mac and uses it several times a week. He's working on becoming more familiar with the Internet."

Tobey Dichter, CEO of Generations on Line, said that’s a good thing.  Dichter’s group promotes Internet access and literacy to seniors. 

"He needs the self-empowerment" of going online himself, Dichter told the AP.
 
"There are too many people surrounding John McCain who are willing to print an e-mail for him,” or do a Web search on his behalf, including aides the Senator says show him sites such as the popular Drudge Report.

"But that cheats him of an opportunity to let his own mind take him to the next link," Dichter said.

"If he doesn't know what links are available, he will only get exactly what he's asking for, and nothing more."

Most Americans, 73 percent, use the Internet for e-mail, informational searches and driving directions.  But people seek many other things online as well, including real estate listing, job searches, shopping, travel and news.  

"The Internet is the ultimate convenience appliance," Fox said.

Although McCain may be in what Dichter calls "digital denial”, his family certainly isn’t.  His daughter, Meghan, blogs from the campaign trail on “McCain Blogette”, and his wife, Cindy, can be seen regularly scrolling away on her Blackberry.

And at 46, McCain's Democratic rival Barack Obama is among an age group where fully 85 percent of Americans are online.   

McCain's blunt acknowledgement of his offline state has led to discussion of whether being Internet savvy is a qualification to becoming leader of the free world.

At the Personal Democracy Forum in New York in June, McCain aide Mark Soohoo defended the senator's lack of online presence to panelists, and said "John McCain is aware of the Internet."

Newsweek's Andrew Romano opined in his blog last week that all the fuss over McCain’s online abilities is silly, and that the Senator hasn't become computer literate because there hasn’t been a need.

"When aides are responding to your messages and briefing you on every imaginable subject, the incentive to get online sort of disappears," he wrote.

McCain is hardly the only wealthy, powerful man to lack such computer literacy. Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone, 85, "is not an avid user," according to spokesman Carl Falto.

"He's capable of going on but doesn't do it frequently," Falto told the AP.

On the other end of the spectrum is renowned Broadway director Arthur Laurents, who at 91 is known to respond faster to e-mails than to phone calls.

But McCain is not along among some of his fellow senators.  Aides to 90-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd claim he prefers to speak directly to his staff, and doesn’t carry a Blackberry, although he does have a computer.
 
So what is it that prevents some Americans from going online?  According to Dichter, some lack access, but intimidation is the biggest obstacle.

"One has to be compassionate with a person who hasn't gotten onto the information highway early, because the cumulative vocabulary is so intimidating," he said.

Additionally, many seniors "feel they have a perfectly happy life without it. They feel that the world is overrun with electronic devices already."

However, such seniors often change their minds once they realize they can get family pictures via e-mail, along with access to health information, support groups, and local community news, Dichter said.

Fox, of Pew, reports that seniors lead all other age groups in using the Internet to trace their family’s genealogy.   Indeed, one-in-three seniors report doing so, compared with a quarter of all Internet users.
 
106-year-old Kathryn Robinson began using the Internet at age 98, and credits her computer with helping her endure a stroke she suffered five years ago. 

"I started to learn because I wanted to e-mail my family," she said in an e-mail to the Associated Press.

" In my case I had a stroke and as a result could not talk.”

"The computer has been a lifesaver for me," she wrote.

If Sen. John McCain is really serious about becoming a Web-savvy citizen, perhaps Kathryn Robinson can help.

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On the Net:

• Pew Center
• Generations on Line

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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