Elderly Encouraged to Reap Benefits of Broadband

(April 7) -- Granny, get your Google.

That's the message from a new organization that aims to get more senior citizens online. Only about 35 percent of seniors have broadband service, compared with 65 percent of the entire adult population. That means they are missing out on everything from chat time with grandchildren to lifesaving tele-medicine.

"The benefits are huge for older individuals," said Debra Berlyn, head of the Project to Get Older Americans Online, or Project GOAL, a new group that is backed by various technology companies like Facebook and Time Warner Cable.

The percentage of seniors without broadband access is even lower among minorities. Only 21 percent of older African-Americans have broadband, according to Blair Levin, who is in charge of broadband efforts at the Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC recently sent Congress a plan to get more Americans access to broadband connections, which provide faster Internet service and access to more information and services. "These gaps in adoption are particularly troubling because of the potential of broadband to transform American life," Levin said in a statement.

Berlyn said broadband is important for seniors because it can reduce their social isolation, help them stay connected to family members, keep their minds sharp, assist them in research on health or other information and help them accomplish chores like shopping without leaving home.

Jonathan Linkous, executive vice president of the American Telemedicine Association, said health care is another area where seniors can benefit from broadband.

"There's a tremendous amount of services available to them that can improve their lives if they can just get linked up," Linkous told AOL News. Remote-monitoring devices, for instance, can help someone recently discharged from the hospital with congestive heart problems, diabetes or high blood pressure. A tabletop device can remind seniors each morning to take their medicine, for example. Then it can help them take their blood pressure and weigh themselves, and send that data back to a health care provider.

"It tends to keep them more independent, healthier," Linkous said. "It lowers the cost of care" by reducing hospital re-admissions caused by such things as missed medicines.

Levin said a Veterans Administration study found that those sorts of remote-monitoring devices cut hospitalizations by 19 percent, resulting in savings of about $2.2 billion per year. And diabetes mortality rates dropped 27 percent.

Berlyn said seniors have not yet flocked to broadband because of concerns about transmitting personal information over the Internet, a lack of familiarity with computers and because they don't yet recognize the value of broadband.

Linkous said many seniors are late adopters of technology and tend to wait until something new is proved useful.

Berlyn's Project GOAL will work with seniors groups to link them up to technology training and help give them resources to teach the elderly why broadband can be helpful for them.

Levin joked that maybe seniors should be required to adopt a teenager to help them get comfortable with broadband technology. The FCC has proposed a Digital Literacy Corps where young people would teach digital skills and help people find relevant content online.

Content is not only increasingly available, but seniors who don't have broadband will start losing out, Berlyn said. Airline tickets, for instance, cost less if they are purchased on the Internet.

Levin agreed, saying, "Broadband is transforming the way we participate in our democracy."

"That's a dynamic I don't think the older population is aware of," Berlyn said. "Fairly soon, it's going to be an economic disadvantage not to be online," and also a disadvantage in getting government and commercial services.

Berlyn finds hope in her newest Facebook friend -- Mississippi Winn of Shreveport, La. Winn has her own Facebook page listing her as the oldest African-American in the U.S. and one of the oldest people in the world. She just turned 113.