Computers Click With Seniors
It was a high-tech showdown and Harry Jue was outgunned.
The retired grocer, who at 56 is a mere tenderfoot among Ventura’s senior citizen set, looked hard at his computer, its contrary cursor teasing in that on-again, off-again way, daring him to make a move.
If only he could. Despite decades of experience running his own business, despite handing down enough smarts to his three boys to get them through Stanford and Harvard, Jue was clearly overmatched in this battle of computer basics.
“I’m really computer literate, huh?” he cracked. “I don’t even know how to turn the machine on.”
Give him an hour. Mirroring a nationwide trend, Jue has joined dozens of other older adults at the Ventura Avenue senior center who are learning computers, subscribing to on-line services and tapping into a global data network that holds the promise of empowering the elderly and easing their loneliness.
Since it began in 1993, the computer lab has grown from a dozen computers and 40 students to twice as many machines, about 160 participants and a waiting list several weeks long.
In coming months, plans call for the 18-week program--put on by the adult education program of the Ventura Unified School District--to be wired into the Internet, launching the innovative program and its gray-haired passengers deep into cyberspace.
Retirees flock to the computer lab, wanting to learn skills so they can pursue new job opportunities. Other seniors come to conquer fears about computers or to keep their minds sharp and limber.
Still others, unable to get around like they used to, take up computers to keep pace in a fast-paced society, controlling a World Wide Web of information with the click of a finger.
“We’re not going to be put on a shelf, we have something to contribute still,” said Albert Forbes, 77, a retired optometrist who has spent his so-called leisure time establishing eye clinics for the poor across Ventura County.
“Computers are really tools of empowerment,” said Forbes, a computer student so worked up by the computer craze that he went out last week and bought a top-of-the-line system for his home. “I decided it was time to get out of the horse and buggy and get on the supersonic.”
*
He is not alone. Nationwide, a recent Times Mirror poll showed that 9% of people 65 and older use a personal computer at home, up 2 percentage points--nearly 600,000 people--from 18 months ago.
Another survey, this one by San Francisco-based SeniorNet, revealed that about one-third of people 55 to 75 own computers, an increase of 43% during the past 16 months.
“If you look across the spectrum, you see the biggest market for computers is among young kids and older adults,” said Bradley Haas, marketing manager for SeniorNet, a 20,000-member nonprofit group dedicated to computer training for the elderly.
Locally, Simi Valley has the only other senior center in the county with a computer lab. Since February, that center has added three classes to meet the growing demand among seniors for computer training.
That kind of growth crushes a long-held belief that senior citizens are resistant to change and reluctant to adopt new technologies, advocates for the elderly say.
“A lot of the folks are here because their kids or their grandkids have sprinted ahead of them and they don’t want to be left behind,” said Jeff Hart, the computer instructor at the Ventura Avenue senior center. “This gets people who are otherwise shut out or shut in to a point where they can reach out and touch someone.”
In Hart’s classroom, the rules are simple. There is no right way or wrong way to do things. Learn at your own pace. And no matter how hard you pound or what button you hit, the computer won’t be hurt.
Heads turning from instruction books to computer screens, fingers pecking keyboards or tapping mouses, students learn everything from basic word processing to how to open spreadsheets and manipulate windows.
And when they get stuck, a plastic cup placed atop a computer terminal alerts Hart that help is needed.
Ojai resident Ed O’Donnell, 62, attends the class to master software that he is using on his home computer for a new business venture. After retiring from insurance sales in late 1993, O’Donnell bought a computer and took up real estate appraisal.
*
At home, he can run property-record searches and other programs that help in the new endeavor. He also sends e-mail to his daughter in college at Humboldt State.
“It’s a matter of learning how to do it,” O’Donnell said. “It’s just another language, but I know I can learn it.”
Across the room, Margaret P. Beck has a problem with the bank.
Oxygen tank by her side, the 80-year-old Ventura woman started attending the two-hour computer class two years ago and is working her way through her second instruction book for the second time.
She said something funny has been happening with her bank account, and she aims to get to the bottom of it.
“They don’t know I know something about computers,” said Beck, a shock of white hair crowning her head like a halo. “If I find something I don’t agree with, I want to be able to talk intelligently about it.”
But there is another reason for Beck’s interest. She is a widow and has no family to lean on. She figures if she can’t do things for herself, they won’t get done.
In a way, it is an empowering experience to punch a keyboard and work a program, to open a new world of information with the touch of a finger.
“The more you keep your mind active, the younger you stay,” she said. “If I have to live in a period where everything is done by computer, I figure I better learn something about them.”
The craze is catching on. Seniors are using computers to write newsletters, trace genealogy, track investments, do research and message relatives and friends.
“It definitely is a connection to the world,” said Virgina Donnellan, the Ventura school district’s project coordinator for adult education services, which has funneled computers to the senior center over the years as other programs have been upgraded.
“There’s a great body of research that validates the idea that people continue learning throughout their lifetime,” she said.
*
Sometimes the learning does not come easy. Just ask Harry Jue. During a recent lesson, facing an obstinate computer, he was stuck and in need of help.
But less than an hour later, he was clicking his mouse and flipping from one computer screen to the next. He could pull up images and enlarge them with the tap of a finger.
He was picking up speed on the information highway, and was learning enough that soon he would be able to square off against his home computer.
“We happen to have one at home, so why not put it to use?” said Jue, who wants to track the stock market on his machine. “So far it’s still fun. And it gives me some motivation to get up in the morning.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
FYI
Computer classes at the Ventura Avenue senior center are free to people 50 and older. To learn more about the two-hour, 18-week sessions--or to help enhance computer training opportunities for seniors--call the adult services division of the Ventura Unified School District at 641-5200.
