Abstract
The concept of aged heterogeneity has been associated with older adults' ability to adapt to the digital age without a systematic empirical analysis. We analyse retired adults' (aged 62 or more) use of traditional media and their digital equivalents in six countries. First, we ask whether heterogeneity in traditional and digital media use increases with age. Second, we study to what extent gender is related to this heterogeneity, and third, the country differences in the heterogeneity of media use in later life. We analyse the 2018 data (N = 5865) of the ‘Older audiences in the digital media environment’ survey using zero-inflated negative binomial models. The results provide partial support for aged heterogeneity in connection to digital media use. Gender differences were small and stable across cohorts, except in reading printed books, which increased with age among women. Country differences in the adoption and use of traditional and digital media were large.
Highlights
Older adults’ increasing engagement with new forms of digital media has attracted much scholarly attention [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
We still lack information on whether this connection is similar across various types of media and whether it can be detected by studying the temporal aspect of media use. We investigate simultaneously both media non-use and the amount of time spent on media to gain a more complete picture of aged heterogeneity
A generational attachment to technologies may explain why older people tend to stick to traditional media plat forms [14,32] and the identification with new digital media and online communities decreases with age [33]
Summary
Older adults’ increasing engagement with new forms of digital media has attracted much scholarly attention [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. We contribute to fill these gaps by investigating older adults’ use of traditional and digital media in six countries: Austria, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Romania, and Spain. While the distinction between printed books and e-books (or printed and e-newspapers) may be somewhat clear-cut, what is considered a traditional TV set and what is digital or internet television may vary considerably between people We will approach this very diverse landscape of media use through the conceptual lens of ‘aged heterogeneity’ [19]. Aged heterogeneity manifests itself in older adults’ intensity of and ability to use various media platforms [21,22,23] For these claims have not been tested with a large survey data. The article ends by discussing the limits of the aged heterogeneity thesis in connection to media use and implications for future research
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