Making a place for seniors on the Net: SeniorNet, senior identity, and the digital divide

The most recent edition of the annual “Falling Through the Net” report from the U.S. Department of Commerce says that people aged 50 and older are among those groups who are least likely to be Internet users [1]. While we might question whether demographic categories are the most useful way to track Internet use, it’s clear that these categories are dominant in conversations about the digital divide. In this paper, we will follow that thread to look at the digital divide for the category of seniors, based on our year-long study of SeniorNet, an organization that supports seniors in learning about technology. By focusing on seniors as a group, we conform to the discourse of the digital divide. At the same time, we want to open up this discourse, to move outside of its conventional story lines and categories. We are both speaking the language of the digital divide and questioning some of its assumptions.