Summary of study: Online activities of Canadian boomers and seniors
In 2007, seniors were significantly less likely to be online than boomers, but the relative gap in Internet use rates between these groups has been closing from 2000 to 2007.
The increase in Internet use rates among older Canadians will likely persist as today’s seniors continue to adopt the Internet as an information tool. Additionally, because almost 80% of the baby boom generation are current Internet users, as these individuals age their continued use of the Internet is likely. These shifts, coupled with evidence that few online individuals later decide to cease using it, suggest increasing rates of Internet use among Canadian seniors.
While Internet use rates among Canadian seniors are likely to continue to increase, less is known about how specific patterns of online behaviour will change as boomers age. In every generation, the needs and preferences of individuals are likely to change as they age.25 This study did not examine changes in online behaviour over time, but did find that online baby boomers and seniors differed significantly in the types of activities they perform online.
Whether seniors of tomorrow will spend more time online—on average—than do today's seniors, is not immediately clear. Overall, the fact that today's baby boomers generally engage in more online activities suggests that as the age cohorts move through time, Canadian seniors will have higher levels of Internet experience and increasingly diverse usage patterns. However, the extent to which these changes occur will vary with users' changing needs.
Ben Veenhof and Peter Timusk are analysts with Business Special Surveys and Technology Statistics Division at Statistics Canada.
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