Use of it among elderly people / Marlina Muhammad

IT can play a huge role in providing advantages to people nowadays in term of information in just one click, communication and so on. However, elderly seem to left aside and far behind from IT compared to youngsters. The purpose of this research was to identify the use of IT among elderly in Malaysia context. More researches had been done for teenagers and adult but little had been done for elderly people. Various studies had shown that these ageing or greying population are increasing in many developing countries including Malaysia. Thus, social as well as economic considerations suggest that they must be considered in the development of current and future technologies. Six set of questionnaires including interview with six participants in Shah Alam region take part in this study. This study uses a triangulation, mixed method of quantitative (questionnaire) and qualitative (interviews) approaches. The use of IT, their experience with computer, Internet and mobile phone, and knowledge of current IT were covered in this study. From the study observed, non-professional working elderly are considered illiterate compared to professional elderly. The finding suggests that there is the digital divide among elderly people between professional working and non-professional working elderly in Malaysia. Furthermore, a lack of interest to information technology (such as Internet) means that elderly people experiencing difficulties to IT. The objective of this study is to provide the preliminary insight for future research. This paper addresses elderly experience of Internet access, computing, and mobile phone.