They’re Entering the Computer Age Only After Exiting the Workplace : Computers: Thousands of senior citizens are putting their time and disposable income into PCs, making them “one of the best-kept secrets of the business,” an industry observer says.

Elizabeth Burton probably doesn’t fit your image of a computer nut.

She’s 68, a retired teacher, widowed. She bought a personal computer in January after watching a niece use one.

“Everyone uses a computer and I know nothing about them, and it made me feel out of it and like an old lady,” she said. “And I don’t like feeling like an old lady.”

The astonishing thing about old ladies and old men using computers is it is no longer astonishing.

Despite a perception that they fear computers, thousands of senior citizens are buying them, subscribing to on-line services and filling community college classes and less formal settings to learn how to use them.

The strength of the senior citizen market is “one of the most overlooked facts or one of the best-kept secrets of the business,” said Rick Martin, director of consumer product marketing at Compaq Computer Corp.

They use PCs to write newsletters and memoirs, trace genealogy, track investments, do research, schedule travel and communicate with relatives and friends.

Merce Cunningham, the 75-year-old French dancer, choreographs works on his PC. Barbara Bush wrote two books on a PC. Her husband has learned to use one since leaving the White House.

“It’s just a good, effective way to run your life,” Bush said, responding to written questions.

SeniorNet, which started with an on-line service eight years ago, now sponsors computer learning centers in 60 cities. SeniorNet itself is available through America Online. The larger Prodigy and CompuServe services each report 200,000 subscribers older than 55.

“I think the opportunity is absolutely huge,” said Richard Zwetchkenbaum, director of PC research for International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass. “These people are at a time in their lives when they can really benefit from a PC.

“They have a lot of time on their hands. They have disposable income. Some suffer from loneliness. This is a chance for them to get behind the wheel, reach out through technology.”

One PC maker, Hyundai Electronics America, has made a direct effort to sell to senior citizens. It equipped a computer with personal finance, genealogy, home inventory and other software meant to appeal to retirees.

Compaq’s Martin said the company made fax modems a standard feature in its consumer models along with trial memberships to three on-line services, based on senior citizen demand.

But senior citizens are down the list of priorities of an industry trying to adjust to diverse demands of consumers while still keeping up with business customers’ need for new products.

“That’s one of the problems of rapid growth. We haven’t gotten to those secondary and tertiary opportunities,” said Safi Qureshey, chief executive officer of PC maker AST Research Inc. in Irvine. “It is happening.”

Others, however, think senior citizens remain overlooked.

“Virtually all of the images of who uses a computer have to do with youth,” said Richard Adler, vice president of development for SeniorNet. “When they talk about the graying of Silicon Valley, they mean somebody has turned 35.”

Senior citizens do represent a smaller market when contrasted with other consumer categories, particularly parents of schoolchildren.

A survey in December by Inteco Corp., a research group, found about 15% of retirees were likely to buy a PC this year, the smallest segment of any age group. But, as with most adults, retirees were more interested in the machines than a year earlier.

Before buying, Burton read magazines, visited stores and talked with relatives, especially that niece. Now she’s one of several hundred seniors taking classes at Glendale Community College to learn DOS, 1-2-3 and WordPerfect.

“I have at least half a dozen friends who are waiting to see what I do with it,” Burton said. “They would like to do it but some don’t have the self-confidence. It does take some self-confidence.”

In nearby Sun City and Sun City West, Phoenix suburbs where homeowners must be at least 55, about 2,000 people belong to computer clubs. Many take classes hosted by the clubs to learn software or swap computer stories.

News is shared on electronic bulletin boards. Club members volunteer to run computers for the local library, art museum, food bank, hospital and even some nearby school districts.

“You’re back in the flow. You have congeniality. It’s excellent,” said Jack Fowler, president of the 1,300-member Computers West club in Sun City West.

So influential are clubs that Fowler and other Apple Macintosh owners in Computers West were invited last month to the introduction of Apple Computer’s new generation of PC, the Power Macintosh.

Senior citizens typically spend more time than other adults studying their machines rather than experimenting with them. Burton said she wouldn’t likely jump onto the Internet global communications network or tap into on-line services until she mastered some basic uses of her PC.

Sam MacDonald, vice president of Computers West, said, “I spent the first three months with my computer sitting down and reading pages and then going back and trying it.”

Such diligence pays off in calls to computer company help lines. Seniors usually call because the machine isn’t working as the manual says rather than because they reprogrammed it, said Steve Smith, technical support director at Dell Computer Corp.

“When they call in, they have gone through everything we hope everybody goes through,” he said. “They tend to know what they need to say to the technician so the whole process of running down and solving their problem is shortened immensely.”

That intellectual challenge is another reason seniors are buying PCs.

“We all go to exercise. That’s very important at our age,” Jack Fregeau, 77, said at a Computers West class. “This is a mental gym.”