Be it self-checkouts at the supermarket, ordering in-store via a touch screen or browsing the web from your smartphone, almost every aspect of our daily lives is touched by technology and it’s the same whatever your age.
But as I explored this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, witnessing the latest innovations heading for the high street, even I, as someone steeped in the tech sector, wondered who the latest gadgets and gizmos were aimed at?
Internet use among the 65-plus age category has more than tripled between 2006-2013, according to the ONS. However, despite the fact that (I dislike their term) ‘silver surfers’ have taken the plunge into a tech-enabled world, have tech companies really changed their marketing efforts to account for the 50-plus tech enthusiasts wanting the latest and greatest devices?
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Not so much.
At AVG Technologies, we recently conducted research to find out how tech companies are marketing to the 50-plus group (we interviewed 6,000 consumers over the age of 50 in nine countries). We found that half of those surveyed feel patronised by the big technology companies, which continually target their leading products to younger people.
In fact, more than half of those surveyed (54%) said over 50s are being singled out by tech giants as the digitally illiterate of this generation – a naïve assumption in this day and age.
Just because we’re over 50, doesn’t mean we can’t see a screen or access a device as well as anyone else. Technology use has become a crucial part of our lives, with four in five of us using apps regularly and 68% using some form of social media.
Perhaps it is unrealistic to say that we are all as tech-savvy as today’s younger generation, which has grown up with high-tech from the word go, able to navigate a smartphone before they can swim (we have research on that, too), but does that mean we should be spoken down to? After all, our generation created the PC industry.
When it comes down to it, we are all more than capable of turning on a smartphone, accessing the Internet and downloading an app.
It’s 2015 and it’s not just younger people who are enjoying the benefits of today’s technological advances.
All age groups have incorporated technology into their everyday lives. Hopefully, by next year’s CES the tech industry will wake up and think twice about marketing to over 50s – and launch products to support us as at any age!
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