The Elderly in the Digital World: The Internet as a Socio-Technically Untrusted System for Older Chinese Internet Users

Abstract

In China, there are 73% of the elderly who do not have access to Internet are eager to access to Internet, though in the mean time most of them confronted with the internet anxieties in the context of the elderly accounts for only 1.4% of all internet users. Based on the participation and observation, as well as the in-depth interview of 35 older adults, 3 family members of them and 2 teachers in the training organization, this article focused on the trust-related barriers of the Internet adoption among the elderly Chinese. Result showed that the elderly perceive the study and adoption of Internet as a fancy and prestigious thing to be engaged with. However, the elderly tend to feel anxious about the Internet adoption, some of them worried about swindlers on the Internet based on their life experiences, for instance the experience in “the Cultural Revolution”. The low level of trustworthy of the Internet was also constructed by the mass media and the interpersonal discussion. This paper fatherly discussed the opportunities, risks, and challenges faced by the elderly in the current media environment, and thus put forward a proposal to prevent the Internet anxiety and promote the adoptions of Internet among elderly Chinese by social interventions (e.g. Internet literacy education) as well as the family interventions (e.g. technical feedback provided by consanguinity).