Loughborough University

The Silver Surfers: the benefits and barriers of internet use for the Elderly in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a highly developed city with 71.7% of the households having personal computers at home and 93.6% of those households with PC connected to Internet according to the government survey in June to August 2006. Over 95% of people aged from 10 to 24 had used Internet in the past twelve months, but only 23.4% of those aged between 55 to 64 and 4.2% of those over 65. The percentage of increase from early 2000 is quite significant when only 3.2 % of those aged from 55 to 64 and 0.2%of those over 65 had used internet in the previous year. (Thematic Household Survey Report No. 21 & 27) However, the actual increase is still very low for the age group above 65. Considering that 28.9% of the aged over 65 have no or primary level education (Population Census 2001), there are still over 70% who have the potential to use the internet. The aim of this dissertation is to identify the benefits that the elderly have for using the internet and the barriers in between especially for those over 65, in the hope to find further ways to expand the usage of the web among them.