The idea that “older” people are somehow helpless in the face of technology is a myth, of course — and here at ZoomerU, we’ve presented a lot of evidence to that effect.

But now an innovative new group in the US is going one step further. Tech Enhanced Life has created an online community of older adults, called Longevity Explorers, to evaluate tech products and help develop new ones.

The founder, San Francisco entrepreneur Richard Caro, told our sister website EverythingZoomer.com, “There’s a meme that older adults just consume stuff and younger adults create things. I think that’s a flawed meme. In our groups, many of the explorers are bubbling with ideas.” Group members brainstorm ideas for leveraging technology to impact aging, evaluate existing products and propose new ones. Read the entire article here — you’ll be fascinated.

To anyone who still thinks the older generations are technophobic, the Fall 2018 Vividata report provides an overwhelming rebuttal. Whether you look at the entire Zoomer population (45+) or zero in on the oldest segments (65+ or even 70+) that you might think would be least adaptive to technology, the facts are clear: these generations are fully embracing technology, and contribute users that outnumber all other age groups.

• Over 90% went online yesterday — 95.6% for all Zoomers, 94.1% for the 65+ and 94.1% for the 70+.
• Not only do they go online, but they spend a lot of time online. Of the 7.5 million Canadians of all ages who spend 1 to 2 hours per weekday online, Zoomers account for 62.9% of them. Translated into actual numbers of people, that totals 4.7 million. Of these, 1.9 million are 65+ and 1.1 million are 70+. A further 8.4 million Canadians spend 2 to 4 hours a day online, and again, the “older” generations account for more than half: 4.5 million Zoomers in all, of which 1.6 million are 65+ and 904,000 are 70+.
• Not surprisingly, given the fact that they control 70% of the nation’s wealth, a lot of the Zoomer online activity has to do with finance and investing. 2.1 million Zoomers have downloaded a banking and finance app for their smartphones – more than any other age group. Almost 80% have conducted online banking in the past three months — more than all other age groups combined. That adds up to 12.8 million Zoomers, of whom 4.6 million are 65+ and 2.6 million are 70+, They also manage their investments online. 1.4 million Zoomers have traded online in the past 6 months — that’s 60% of all Canadians who did so.

It makes perfect sense that a group like Longevity Explorers should have emerged, and hopefully their activities will expand to Canada. ZoomerU will be watching, and we’ll keep you updated.