An Analysis on the Internet Uses and Barriers of the Older Adults in Korea

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the patterns and barriers of the Internet for the elderly adults in Korea. Data was collected through the face to face interview using a questionnaire for the residence of Daegu and Kyungsang Buk-Do areas targeted over the 60-years-olds elder adults. A total of 119 valid response data were analyzed with the descriptive statistics and the group differences by age and gender using SPSS 18.00. It found that the most of the elder adults access the Internet to seek the entertainment contents, the knowledge-related contents, and the cultural and art contents. They spend most of the Internet online session to do searching information and enjoying movie and music. However, there were age differences and gender differences within the subjects. The complexity of computer and the Internet usage is one of the barriers for the Internet access, and they suggest that a customized education and training courses of computer literacy for the elderly adults would be the ways of resolve those obstructions.

A study on the effect of digital literacy on information use behavior

“…Other studies have used demographic information as the frame to study information use, such as Kim et al (2014b) who studied use of information devices in people over the age of 60. Other researchers, too, have studied information use behavior of the elderly (Lee and Myeong, 2010;Kim et al, 2014a).…”

Digital literacy among Korean older adults: A scoping review of quantitative studies

“…While older adults are generally defined as individuals aged 65 and older, 23 we found that many studies used age criteria younger than 65 years (e.g., 60 or 55 years and older) to define older adults. 6 , 24 – 42 Therefore, we applied broader age criteria for older adults—which includes those aged younger than 65 if researchers of the original studies defined them as older adults—to align with such studies. Moreover, this study defined digital literacy as literacy in or utilization of any type of digital device.…”