8. Failure of Embedment

The domestic space can be described in terms of three main elements: social space, technological space and physical space. . . . The technological space consists of the household technologies that are embedded in the physical space and used by the members of the family as part of the social space. (Vankatesh, Chen and Gonzalez 2006, 110-11)

Very few computer owners in the Park placed their computers in the shared spaces of the household such as the living room. Helmut Rossler was a notable exception and one or two others, such as Laslo Uunterweg, did not always tuck their machines ‘out of sight.’ Since these early computers were large desktop models that required more than one person to set up, they tended to stay put, once situated. An initial misplacement, however, could interfere with changing computer needs. This occurred, for instance, in the Cooper household when Marvin Cooper lost interest in using the computer that had been placed in the Sun Porch, which doubled as a TV room. As his attention shifted to watching TV at increasingly louder volumes, Mary Cooper was unable to concentrate on her tasks at the computer. Contrariwise, Helmut could never ‘forget’ about his computer as it was front and center in his primary living space. Perhaps it was too present, silently reprimanding him in front of others for his technological stumbles.

If, on the other hand, a computer was too discretely placed out of sight, it might become out-of-mind for the potential user. In Myrtle Likert’s cottage her computer was rendered almost invisible as it became surrounded by cardboard boxes that overflowed with her collected ‘treasures.’ Occasionally, Park residents had to pack up their possessions and disrupt their routines. This happened to many people in the wake of changes in the zoning codes of the city in which the Park was located. Cottages had to be remodeled and their inhabitants temporarily or permanently relocated. This remodeling-induced relocation was hard on Laslo because it took months to resettle him and during that time, his computer along with his treasured scientific tools were inaccessible. Sometimes, Park residents voluntarily relocated when better cottages became available. The Mahlers chose to switch cottages for a better view, but once Will Mahler’s computer was boxed up it took him the better part of a year to organize his things and reconnect it. During this time, he seemingly got out of the habit of computing and (apparently) never returned to using it as frequently as before.

The most painful kind of relocation for Park residents was the downsizing of a household in the wake of a spouse’s death or due to the need for assistance in daily living. With severe space limitations residents were hard pressed to include large computing systems, nor could all of them afford to replace them with smaller models. [6] Of the five individuals who did bring their computers with them to the assisted living building, two used them very little. All things considered, I would argue that the computing technology of many Park residents did not achieve embeddedness and therefore cannot be seen as truly domesticated.

9. Loss of Primary Support System: The Old vs. New Computer Club

The Computer Club was a major source of support in its first years of existence in the 1990s. But as the years went by and members gained experience, they wanted more from the Club than it could provide. Even in the beginning it was not intended to serve as a training venue. After the initial meeting that attracted more than one hundred attendees, interest in the Club dropped off sharply and soon consisted of a core of thirty to forty attendees—a miniscule percent of the total Park population of almost one thousand. The probable reason for this lack of attendance was because most people had hoped for hands-on instruction rather than Don McDonald’s ‘under the hood’ expositions (although this did attract some of the male members). At first, the Club didn’t even have a computer on which to demonstrate functions. As Al Swenson pointed out, the Club was not a class; it was just a club—in his view, a “comedy club.” Many club attendees, however, tried to treat the Club as a class in the absence of other options. There was also a core group that continued to meet for the socializing it provided even though their computer use was not thereby advanced.

By 2004, Al and Don had grown tired of trying to find new topics of interest and they turned the leadership over to a younger man, George Brinkley, just as the club meeting location was moved to a new building. That core group of old club members soon found that the cozy ambiance provided by Don and Al’s jocularity was missing. Some of them were deterred from attending by the longer distance to the new building. The men with vision and hearing problems said that the lighting and introduction of amplification in the new meeting room bothered them. The second-generation leaders of the Club held meetings monthly instead of weekly and not at all during the summer. Furthermore, a younger cohort of residents with a possibly more advanced level of I-C technology experience began attending meetings. Thus, on every dimension, the original members were distanced from the familiar face(s) of the Computer Club. They had lost a cherished part of their social network even as they, by virtue of aging, were becoming frail.

10. Absence of Good Infrastructure in the Park

Early I-C technology adopters are, to begin with, alone within the greater social order. Without the support of other users of an interactive technology, they have no communication partners and there is little impetus for the provision or broadening of an infrastructure to support the technology. This “critical mass” phenomenon (Markus 1987) was operative in Flamingo Park for at least the first decade of the Computer Club’s existence. Although repeatedly frustrated in his attempts to make Park administrators aware of the need for technological infrastructure beyond telephones, Al Swenson kept trying. The Park wasted many years before it arranged for the at-your-elbow help Barbara Howard and others needed to progress with their computing. It wasn’t until the Club had attracted a regular attendance of thirty or so individuals that Park administrators in the late 1990s arranged for a larger room, a projection screen and a single, used computer to be available for the club. It took another couple of years to arrange for an Internet connection.

Around 2004, or eight years after the inception of the Computer Club, Park administrators were persuaded by Club members to provide a few items of equipment such as a proper computer projection system. In order to raise money to purchase a new computer, Club members conducted raffles for lesser items. The room in which this equipment was located was not a dedicated space for the Club, and the computer equipment was locked up between meetings. Unlike some other retirement communities, the administrators of Flamingo Park did not provide public computers for use by residents who did not own them. And in the absence of such a computing center, there was no programmed instruction of a hands-on nature. Had the Park directors had a more visionary view or understanding of I-C technology, many more Park residents might have learned to use computers or at least have gained some acquaintanceship with the phenomena that mass media outlets were promoting.

11. Traumatic Life Changes and Physical Decline

The deaths of their wives had drastic impacts on the computer use of several husbands. Helmut Rossler’s chronic depression deepened after his wife’s death and his subsequent move to the Assisted Living building. Although he took his computer with him, he rarely used it and he did not take it to the Nursing Care Center once transferred there, where he spoke only of waiting to die. The death of Dr. Querengasser’s wife after he was transferred to the Nursing Care Center added to his isolation and lessening of interest in all things. Illness and sensory loss also impacted use, as was the case with several of the men suffering from macular degeneration. Cognitive decline resulted in the loss of interest in computing by a number of the research participants. The burden of taking care of ill spouses was another reason for a disruption in computer use.

[The following figure summarizes interviewee computer use by household, as well as changes in their household locations and health conditions throughout the research period.]

Resolutions and Partial Solutions for Roadblocks

Efforts by these older explorers to solve technological problems and improve their computer use did not always achieve the desired result. Nonetheless, the following set of attempted strategies and work-arounds demonstrate the strong desire by many Club members to acquaint themselves with the technological advances of their society. For other members, however, the best solution they found for their aggravation was to walk away from the computer.

1. Opting Out

A few of the Computer Club attendees quietly stopped computing. Will Mahler and Myrtle Likert are examples of individuals who simply decided to occupy themselves with other tasks that they reportedly found satisfying. For Myrtle it was collecting and shopping at the Park resale store, and for Will it was attending to his voluminous postal mail and watching old movies on TV. Will insisted, however, that his computing days were not necessarily over, and Myrtle’s computer remained plugged into the power strip. Other participants, such as Laslo Unterweg, stopped their active computer use with vociferous denunciations about the failed promise of the technology.

2. Redoubling Effort

There were a sparse number of individuals like Barbara Howard, who decided, despite major setbacks and health crises, to keep trying to remain active computer users and explorers. Getting back to her computer became Barbara’s primary motivation for enduring the many months of therapy following several major surgeries and at least three strokes in her late 80s and early 90s. For her, multiple roadblocks constituted additional but worthwhile challenges to be added onto that of computing. To augment her own mighty efforts Barbara invited help from all and sundry, including her visiting children, Park acquaintances and special friends like Sturgis Johnson or myself. Al Swenson, as the most experienced computer user he knew in the Park, was more alone in solving his problems. His computer gave up the ghost in 2008 when Al was 91 and in declining health. Nevertheless, he expended considerable quantities of his waning stamina and mental acuity wading through a four-day morass of India-based help agents (whom he could not hear or understand) and restored it to a functional state. This took place six months before his death.

3. Employing Former and Adjacent Technologies/Skills.

Helmut Rossler used his knowledge of videography to try to understand computer functions. He videotaped his niece using e-mail, focusing his camera on her hands on the keyboard and her narrated step-by-step account. He thereby achieved a modicum of success, though short-lived and ultimately frustrated. As former HAM radio operators, Al Swenson and Mervin Cooper approached computers in part as a substitute technology for long distance communication and were able to embrace this promise via e-mail. But it was the advent of Skype that really excited Al and inspired his enthusiastic use; it had the component that he was missing in e-mail—the human voice of his HAM days. For Nelson Jones, the computer was just one more gadget to play with. He was the first to mount a camera on top of his desktop machine and tinkered with every application he came across including voice recognition software in the late 1990s. As his vision failed, Nelson augmented his eyesight with binoculars; to soften screen glare, he wore a visor. He figured out early on how to enlarge font within computer texts such as e-mail, and he continually searched for devices that would allow him to continue to use his computing equipment.

Whereas keyboarding proved a deterrent for some beginning computer users, those who were already accomplished typists could relate to that aspect of computing with ease. For the most part these were women such as Barbara Howard, Marion Probst, Mary Cooper and Carmen Nouvel. However, Al Swenson expressed gratitude for a high school teacher who had once made him take a typing class, declaring that this ability facilitated his computer use and that the lack of this skill hindered his male friends. Don McDonald was comfortable with computing devices; his DOS-based PC served his data entry needs adequately. Although he eschewed the Internet and its suspicious contents, he eventually warmed up to the idea of electronic mail and when he found a service for it that did not include a Web browser, he signed on. Had he not mastered the elemental function of a data processing machine, he would never (I suggest) have experimented with the next incarnation of computers—as a communication or information resource; indeed, it took him a decade from the time he started the Computer Club to take that step.

4. Building on Existing Interests and Life Practices

The card game of Solitaire—widely known by U.S. adults—was reportedly included in the applications of an omnipresent operating system for computers in order to ‘train’ novice users on how to manipulate a mouse. This worked quite well for many Computer Club members such as Nelson Jones, Neva Evans, and Laslo Uunterweg, to name a few. Alas, several of these members, including Laslo, did not master other computing applications nearly so well. In fact, playing Solitaire was the only computer function Laslo liked. However, half a dozen men enjoyed the game of Flight Simulator which appealed to the life experiences of three former pilots and several engineers.

A large number of women, some of whom had little interest in the Internet, were enthusiastic about making greeting cards with CD-Rom programs because the sending of greetings was an activity with which they were already familiar. Similarly, the ability to type with fancy fonts and print onto decorated paper appealed to those who were used to sending holiday letters. Mary Cooper was excited about extending her penchant for scrap booking with the aid of her computer and created professional quality scrapbooks for each of her grandchildren. She surmounted—with the help of her children—what she considered to be a fairly steep learning curve in the mastery of scanning and page layout design with which she was experienced in paper form. Many men laid aside the Wall St. Journal and used their computers to check on their stock portfolios; a portion of them never did anything else online.

For some Club members the appeal of the Internet (mostly e-mail) was heightened when they learned that it enabled them to enter a global network of their special interests. For the Coopers, it was connecting with missionary workers affiliated with their church denomination. For Dr. Querengasser it was communicating with fellow therapists from around the world and for Neva Evans it was reuniting with old classmates. Al Swenson and other Park men were delighted to discover online Bridge games and Barbara Howard finally decided to pay for a more reliable Internet connection when she discovered an online Scrabble partner. Marvin Cooper and Al were amazed to find that a network of HAM operators was organized via the Internet, and Al engaged in conversations with these amateur radio operators in other countries. And, after twelve years of reluctance, even Don McDonald became interested in the Net when he realized that he could thereby participate in prayer groups; in 2008 he asked Al to help him establish a faster connection to get online. Thus, strong interest in selected subjects eventually spurred some Club members to seek assistance to overcome their disdain for or ineptitude in the realm of computing technology [7].

5. Sequestration and Kind-hearted Subterfuge

The integration of new technologies into a household entails the many factors that these authors mention:

As the computer technology diffuses and becomes gradually domesticated . . . we need to supplement traditional evaluation metrics, such as productivity and efficiency, with those that take into consideration aesthetics, convenience, family dynamics, and the social and emotional needs of household members.... (Vankatesh, Chen and Gonzalez 2006,109)

The majority of Computer Club attendees set up their computer equipment in a second bedroom or on their enclosed sun porches. This spared the non-user of the household the sight of what for many spouses (both male and female) was a less than welcome guest. As Marvin Cooper lost interest in using their computer, Mary Cooper had it moved from their sun porch/TV room to a second bedroom—a quieter setting for her and removal of a distraction for him. The most pronounced case of sequestration was that of Neva Evans’ peripatetic laptop. While her husband, Peter, was still alive, Neva kept the offending instrument in a desk drawer and used it when he was not at home or was in another room. After Peter died, Neva’s laptop moved out into the open space of her bedroom and eventually was allowed to migrate to her living room. Her small laptop burgeoned into an adjacent and larger monitor set up as she developed a relationship with Tally, another widowed Park resident who was enthusiastic about computing.

Although some Park couples enjoyed doing everything together, others were able to pursue their interests separately. Some of the spouses of Computer Club attendees went to other club meetings or activities during its weekly meetings or simply stayed home. When Neva’s husband refused to return to a computer class they had attended together at a local community college, she later enrolled in other computer classes by herself. Thus, some Park residents managed to find a way to fly solo in pursuit of their tech interests while others did not or could not leave an ailing or unhappy spouse behind.

6. Life Repositioning: Loss and Acquisition

While no one obviously wished for the death of her/his spouse, it was apparent that this event proved ultimately liberating for some individuals—mostly for the women whose husbands had for years been experiencing physical and cognitive decline. Marion Probst, Barbara Howard, Mary Cooper and Neva Evans all expanded their computer use after the deaths of their husbands. This occurred for at least two reasons—as a means of distracting themselves from their grief and/or because their spouses’ disapproval (subtle or overt) was absent. In two instances, widowed women acquired new companions and in Neva’s case, her gentleman-friend increased and improved her computing. Another life change that affected computer use was the geographic relocation of some residents’ children. Such moves were often prompted by the declining health of a parent. When Sam Dunlop’s daughter moved across the country to her father’s town (his son already lived nearby) his diminished computer use was resuscitated during his children’s frequent visits. In addition to helping him with his computer tasks, they jointly searched the Internet on topics of interest and with great merriment they also merged computer searches with TV game show watching.

7. Family and Friends

No one I knew of in the Park used his/her computer without periodic or even continuous help. Family support was vital for many beginners. Residents’ children donated cast-off computers to them and then dispatched their children to help the grandparents figure it out. Of course, such help could be a mixed blessing since the younger generations had interests in and approaches to computing that were not always in line with those of older users. Some Park couples explored computing together, attending classes and giving each other moral support. If, as was usually the case, one partner became the dominant user the other tried to encourage and support her/his efforts. But other couples, such as Neva and Peter Evans, did not achieve a meeting of the minds on the new technology. And, as Neva once observed, when it was the male partner who was less interested or capable, he did not acquiesce quite so willingly as wives did to being “left behind.” These technologically “decoupled” individuals—like other Park residents who were divorced, never married, and/or childless—had to rely on “outside” sources of support, such as other residents or classes. However, many of the Park residents who attended courses offered at nearby schools or Elder Hostels reported them as less than ideal because there was too little carryover to the configurations of their home PCs.

8. Computer Club and Park Classes

Thus, for a core of Park computer users, the Computer Club became the mainstay for unseasoned and experienced residents alike. At their weekly meetings, attendees commiserated, struggled to mesh divergent interests and skills and watched each other come and go over the years. The co-leaders who kept it running were very instrumental in influencing new members’ choices of hard/software, much to the dismay of Marion Probst, initially the sole Mac user/member, who had no one to talk to about her computing issues. Co-director Al Swenson heavily promoted AOL as an Internet provider, although there were other options. A few of the members who early on discovered JUNO, a free service provider for e-mail, eventually switched to AOL before JUNO included an Internet browser in its services. Barbara Howard, for reasons of economy, was one of the last to join AOL even though JUNO was unreliable as an Internet provider.

Another influential voice was that of Cody Peabody, a middle aged, male tech tutor who came into the Park to give talks at the Club, hold occasional group classes, and offer individual computer trouble shooting for a fee of about $80 per hour. He counseled club members to use AOL, Yahoo and, by 2002, Google for their Internet explorations; apparently, he was rather dogmatic in his suggestions. For example, when I once suggested the search engine Alta Vista as an alternative to the hierarchical, indexed nature of Yahoo, club members expressed doubt, explaining that Cody had said they should all use the same thing so that he could help them better by keeping everyone on the same page. But such is the nature of “help;” it is constrained by the skills, knowledge and biases of those who provide it. As a fellow Mac owner I tried to help Marion with her computing questions and we often speculated about whether Neva Evans and other tech explorers would have had more gentle learning curves if they had not been discouraged from trying the Apple operating system as had been Neva’s original desire.

9. Proxies

When several study participants found themselves unable to use their computers but not yet willing to give up their computing personas, they turned their keyboards over to others who became their proxies either temporarily or permanently. Laslo Uunterweg’s visiting secretary performed all of his important computing tasks with increasing frequency. She conducted his business, checked his stock portfolio, wrote his e-mail, and searched matters of interest under his direction and/or dictation. She and Laslo were able to do so based on their complementary knowledge of the potential uses of the computing apparatus, which, in turn, rested on his personal experience of previous use. A similar situation existed in Sam Dunlop’s ‘household’ when his children used his computer on his behalf for a variety of purposes like sending e-mail to family members, executing print commands and the like. Legally blind, Sam requested this help and instructed them on the tasks. These examples are of on-site proxy computer use. There is also a remote proxy use now in effect as Sturgis Johnson and outside computer tutor, Cody Peabody ‘take over’ the desktops of willing Park residents. We might wonder, then, if Barbara Howard were to reach the point of inability (due to the increasing weakening of her hands, for example) to use her computer and directed Sturgis in its use from his computer, what would become of her status as computer/I-C technology user?

There are more temporary proxy-ships that generally do not negate primacy of use. Whenever a computer tutor, Computer Club helper, or visiting family member took over the use of a resident’s keyboard to instruct, solve a problem, etc., that too was a kind of proxy use. This typically short-term experience, however, did not obviate continued use by the computer owner. Interesting questions arise with regard to proxies and computer use. If Laslo, for example, is no longer able to see well enough to use his computer, do we subtract him from the pool of active users? Or, do we take into account his directed use of his computer three times a week by his secretary? Clearly, he is still—however indirectly—using his computer. Thus, when considering the issue of I-C technologies in households, the concept of use should include that of proxies. This is a noteworthy issue for pollsters.

10. Warm vs. Cold Experts and Directional Help

In many cases, the Park computer users cared less about the content of Computer Club meetings and more about the group support which was the attraction that kept people attending. And equally important were the individualized, one-on-one, face-to-face, or side-by-side interactions among club members and with the co-directors that encouraged computing efforts in the face of perpetual frustration. This nurturing support was offered by what one researcher calls “warm experts:”

They possess the knowledge needed to operate with a reasonable degree of success in the world of technology, but, at the same time, they are part of the user’s life-world and share experiences, interests and knowledge with them. Taking this position allows the warm expert to mediate between the . . . overwhelmingly diverse content of the medium, on the one hand, and the novice user’s concrete local situation, needs and background. (Bakardjieva 2006, 101)

Club members, Park neighbors [8], family members and I all served as warm experts (or, at least, semi-experts) for many of the computer users. Paid tutors from the outside, such as Cody Peabody, on the other hand, were more lukewarm or cold experts who were somewhat knowledgeable about Park life and people but not friends or close associates. Without the presence of warm experts, many fewer Park residents would have ventured down a high-tech pathway. Within a warm network of support, instruction was offered in a multi directional fashion. Some information traveled vertically: teacher/experienced computer user to student/novice user. This verticality could go north or south generationally speaking. That is, the teacher might be one’s grandchild or, as in Neva Evan’s family, the students might be one’s grown children. Instruction also had a horizontal directionality in which two individuals with similar knowledge levels instructed or advised each other. Although this tended to be gender limited, sometimes equally knowledgeable male and female residents shared technological discoveries with each other. There were also instances of horizontal help dyads that were cross-generational. Carmen Nouvel, for example, learned to compute long before her son reached adulthood but once he matured and became computer accomplished, they engaged in mutual teaching and advising. What I never witnessed, however, was a teacher/student relationship between married couples; no one wanted to risk upsetting her or his mate by giving him or her driving lessons on the highway of technology.

[These differing kinds of tutelage are illustrated in figures 2, 3 and 4 shown below: “I-C technology instruction by generational age.” For enlarged versions of these figures, see Appendix 2.]

11. Communal Climate

A more subtle and diffused source of support for Club members was the community itself. I witnessed countless instances of generosity and encouragement among the Park residents. They supported one another in times of grief, as Neva Evans described when her husband died, and in coping with all manner of illness and travail. The most obvious channel for mutual help was the Park volunteer program, which engaged about half of the community. Many Park events, services and leisure activities were sustained by a corps of volunteers. [9] The volunteer program helped residents become acquainted which fostered social interaction which in turn encouraged the volunteer impulse.

Expanding Social Networks Through Computing

The Park members’ spirit of communitas, generated in good measure by volunteer activity, provided a foundation for the Computer Club. The Club and computing activities, in turn, extended the reach of the volunteer program and added to the sociability of Park life. This occurred in several ways. Whereas female residents had many opportunities to socialize and enter each other’s private spaces—both through volunteering and by virtue of their status as ‘natural’ care givers—male socializing was more limited. Adhering to the social norms of this age cohort, married men and their wives interacted mainly with other couples—a small portion of the larger community. Single men, unless they were very outgoing, had an even more circumscribed social network. [10] Consider Laslo Unterweg. Once he was moved to a different cottage and lost contact with a friendly neighbor in the old one, his only socializing took place around his computer. Social agents for him were: 1) a paid computer tutor who came to his home, 2) a paid secretary who came to his home several times a week, 3) occasional visits from this researcher studying his computer use and 4) attendance (until his hearing failed) at Computer Club meetings. In the absence of his computer ownership, Laslo would have been severely isolated and alone.

Barbara Howard’s circumstance illustrates a richer instance of this process. After her husband died, she initially had fewer male ‘dining partners’ as her association with couples ebbed. Eventually, however, her circle of acquaintances in the Park was substantially widened as a result of her computer knowhow. Notwithstanding the strong political views that might have otherwise prevented it, Barbara interacted with all those in the Park who needed her technological skills and who offered her similar help when she requested it. In the first category were those who asked her to type business letters, make greeting cards and design leaflets. She served as a semi-official reporter gathering information for the Park Flyer which she produced for several summers. When she was no longer able to live independently, she became an interviewer of her fellow residents in the Assisted Living (A.L.) complex. With the aid of her computer which she brought with her to her 10 by 14 foot room, she wrote their biographies for the A.L. newsletter. In turn, Barbara received uncountable hours of help from many Park residents who assisted with her hardware failures, software installation, instruction on the use of new applications, and so on. Even those who were not interested in computers helped her by constructing aids (such as a dropped keyboard) for her use, moving hardware in and out and generally singing her praises as a tech devotee.

Early scholars of digital technology envisioned a palliative role for the Internet through which the socially isolated could find a virtual community. Although selected computer users in Flamingo Park experienced this benefit, it was not the cyber world that proved to be the most crucial conduit for expanding personal networks. It was the mere fact of ownership and the challenges of using this technology that generated increased socializing. It was their computing expertise that afforded Park men expanded opportunities to serve as volunteers—as tech tutors—and to enter the homes of residents with whom they otherwise would not have interacted. It was their common interest in the technology that allowed women—married and single—to forge platonic relationships with Park men. It was the act of computing that brought together individuals from diverse backgrounds and ideologies as their tech anguish overrode any previous reluctance to become acquainted.

The Long View

It was not my initial intention to sustain my research in Flamingo Park for over a decade. But as my life and inquiries became entwined with those of the Park residents, I felt compelled to return again and again to chart their progress and to now and then right someone’s course. We were, in reality, on the same sojourn through the foreign territory of technology, even though each of us may have been at a different place along the path.

As the years went by I became increasingly appreciative of my prolonged interaction with the residents of Flamingo Park because the merits of a long-term study of the role of I-C technology in the lives of older adults are many. One can follow the arc of progress with technology, gauge the sustainability of human effort, observe how use waxes and wanes, chronicle how life-changes interfere with or improve abilities, identify life motifs, and discern immutable traits that impact learning.

Another advantage of a long-term view is that, with time, a consistent core of concerns emerges for each individual. It was only after many years’ of interviews with Laslo Unterweg that I fully appreciated the depth of his frustration over lost time and how much he valued that commodity. Similarly, it was the constant repetitions of their personal mantras that finally allowed me to hear the despair that Neva Evans felt over her husband’s anti-technology stance and the love of connecting with people experienced by Al Swenson. It was through long years of association with Barbara Howard that I could comprehend the all-encompassing quality of her determination to fully embrace her life in the present and to be ever ready for whatever came her way.

Most importantly, I experienced the folly of hasty conclusions and was often reminded that research is, in a sense, never done. When I visited with Al Swenson in 2005, I learned that he had become bored with his computer explorations and could find little new on the Internet to excite him. Thus, at the age of 88, he drastically reduced the number of hours he spent on his computer, and he emerged from his at-home office and rejoined his wife in their living room to watch their stored programs on TiVo. One could have reasonably predicted a continuing decline in his interest. But approximately two years later, he was introduced to Skype and it reinvigorated his computing persona. In 2008 he was still enthusiastically Skyping and trying to interest other Park residents in its use. One such resident was his friend Will Mahler, who had two sons living in New Zealand—the perfect candidate for Skyping. But Will had not had his computer working for over a year and he resisted Al’s urging, saying he would rather communicate by telephone. Notwithstanding Will’s apparent lack of interest, he assured me that he would have his computer running by the time of my next visit. With regard to this vow, I have learned to make no predictions.

Gerontological research of the last two to three decades has focused on the notion of a life-long development for human beings. The Life Span Theory, for example, posits that development continues throughout the life cycle. “That gain or growth as well as loss or decline can be observed throughout the life course has provided a general framework for researchers to explore some of the positive attributes of aging.” Some tenets of this theory are that “aging is a life-long process; . . . no one age or period of life is any more important than any other age or period . . . [and that] there is plasticity and resiliency in function throughout the life span” (Hoyer and Rybash 1996, 67). Two particularly salient concepts are “resiliency and reserve capacity:”

Resiliency . . . refers to a capacity for successful adaptation and recovery in response to stressful life events. Reserve capacity refers to the individual’s resources for responding effectively to challenging situations. [S]ome researchers have suggested that there is a diminished reserve capacity at the end of one’s life span and that the individual is vulnerable to a variety of circumstances associated with mortality. However, studies of reserve capacity and resiliency do not address how development can be enhanced in situations where there is optimal support. (Hoyer and Rybash 1996, 68)

The idea of continuous development provides a compelling rationale for the longitudinal examination of the learning challenges we all face throughout our life cycle. Individuals’ lives in old age are not static. Their interests, pursuits and abilities fluctuate. Appreciating these changes and the factors that influence them requires patience and re-viewing.

Ambivalence, Ambiguities and Inedible Truths

Out there in the land of American citizenry, research findings seem, of late, to be regarded as an edible commodity. Many approach the lunch counter of information and request their daily “take away” of factoids. Here, then, are some wisdom morsels from my Flamingo Park research that I can serve up to interested diners.

• The content of computing was in many instances not as significant as the act of computing.

• Computing expanded the in-person (i.e., co-located) social networks of the users.

• Computing increased the self-esteem of users when they were adjudged “cool” and “with it” by their progeny, most particularly their grandchildren.

• Owning computers—a luxury item—enhanced the esteem and status of individuals as persons of means.

• Owning/displaying a computer served as a symbol of intelligence and accomplishment to others (even when use had ceased).

If we take the time to consider the research findings more extensively we may find less digestible aspects but achieve a more nuanced understanding. In place of a tasty conclusion of desserts, there is the less palatable dish of ambivalence. As described in earlier sections, it is obvious that the resolutions and solutions for the computer-related roadblocks of Park Club members had as many drawbacks as benefits—help that was harmful, support that was equivocal, user outcomes that were ambiguous, value that was indeterminate. It became apparent, especially as residents aged, that computing was not an altogether salutary experience for the computer owners in Flamingo Park. At one end of the spectrum, Barbara Howard and Al Swenson thrived on computing and were indefatigable in their efforts to expand their knowledge and use of the technology. They both referred to computing as lifesaving. At the other end, Laslo Unterweg and Helmut Rossler were driven (further) into anger, despair and depression by their perceived inability to learn computer functions. Laslo’s anger was rooted in the proportion of effort, time and brainpower expended in relation to the paltry gains in technological understanding and use. For Helmut the despair grew out of his conclusion that he was not mentally capable of using the technology.

Some residents tasted a bit of the promise of virtual community through electronic mail: Sam Dunlop with Army buddies, Neva Evans with classmates, Al with former HAM operators, Mary and Marvin Cooper with their fellow missionaries, and many with family members in distant towns. Others, however, never found any viable e-pals. Those individuals who never got beyond a rudimentary use of e-mail were living Al Swenson’s worst-case scenario of owning a $3,000 mail machine. Al was, in fact, the only member of the original Computer Club to experiment with social networking sites. He was ‘put on Facebook’ by his grandchildren during their visit in December, 2008. He sent me a ‘friend request’ in January, 09, but he confessed that he didn’t like using Facebook, preferring e-mail for communication. Had he had time to discover more than one former schoolmate before his death two months later, he might have eventually warmed up to it. But this is the point: he had run out of time.

The number of Flamingo Park computer owners who expressed positive sentiments about the things they had learned to do with computer technology was equaled by those who had tales of regret as well—mostly for their perceived lack of success in their endeavors. Everyone, at some time in the course of computing, encountered frustration and felt a sense of desperate helplessness—even savvy Al Swenson when his computer expired in 2008. They recounted a Kaffkaesque nightmare of stagnation, of waiting: waiting for something to happen on their screens, waiting for a connection to the Internet, waiting for a tutor to arrive, waiting on the telephone for a help desk explanation, waiting for understanding to descend. To many Park computer users their machine seemed unforgiving, no matter how hard they tried to placate it. This was the implication in their complaints as they suffered through the unforeseen consequences of errant keystrokes and mouse clicks and finally just gave up on a task.

In addition to mechanical issues, beginning and intermediate level users were undone by the amount of information confronting them on their computer screens. Myrtle Likert was the most extreme example of the inability to choose any one ‘item’ (icons, words, menus etc.) to focus on while trying to execute a given task, but more experienced users had similar difficulties. Barbara Howard was losing track of where things were on her desktop as a result of her simultaneous cognitive slowing and the increasing complexity of her operating system. Shneiderman’s (2000) notion of “evolutionary learning,” which includes “progressive disclosure” of the contents of computers, is intriguing in this context. If, as he suggests, users could control the presentation of the content, they could better match their skill level with the machine capabilities. But the notion of evolutionary learning would have to include the design for a devolution of learning ability such that the user could also de-complexify the program as needed.

Life-long development is a worthy concept with which to approach the subject of aging. The question is how to enhance the quality of the ever-developing life course. My research inquiry included the assumption that the well being of our oldest citizens would benefit from their engagement in meaningful challenges, and I theorized that learning to use the latest I-C technology would be such a challenge. This challenge was in the category of keeping up with cultural change which I regarded as a worthy goal (as did many of my interviewees). However, as a result of witnessing first hand the toll of this endeavor, I have modified my view. To return to the metaphors of roads and journeys, I would now recommend that we downshift our expectations regarding the content of learning tasks. Technological pace keeping can constitute too great a burden to mandate for our final years.

The Non-Adoption Option

At present, young brains are being trained by electronic media to speed up, to fracture attentions spans, to multi-task as never before. Many older brains cannot sync up with this pace, cannot reorganize their structures accordingly. And the rapid pace of technological change is apparently overwhelming middle-aged citizens as well, if the recent advertising campaign of a major retailer of electronic goods is a reliable indicator. With slogans like, “technology changes faster than the weather,” “stay on top of the ever-changing technological world,” and “future-proof your technology,” a large U.S. chain store promised, in early 2011, to buy back their customers laptops, cell phones and TVs as they become outdated. [11]

For approximately two decades pundits have been declaring the new info-communication technologies—with the Internet at their center—to be a major cultural shift. In fact, one discernible form of cultural movement has been a great deal of technological pushing. For the Senior Citizens with whom I was computing, it seemed more like shoving as they listened to television and radio announcers rattle off incomprehensible letters. More than one member of the research population in Flamingo Park commented that at every turn they heard, “H-T-P or something” and “WWWs everywhere.” These individuals did not know, in the mid to late 1990, how to translate or make use of the letters. But they were increasingly aware that these arcane symbols were shunting them to the sidetrack of some larger cultural context. When they initially did try to work with “all the letters” they found that they could rarely get the “addresses” (i.e. the URLs) typed or moved into the “box” correctly and thus could not even get onto the super highway they were hearing about. Since that time, those widely-advertised letters have, of course, become so integrated into the national technological consciousness that the need to say them has nearly vanished. First the ‘HTTP’ was rendered unnecessary; then the ‘WWW’ too was omitted. This was followed by the advice, “for more information on this story, go to “NPR dot org” and now it’s “see us on Facebook” and “join our Twitter feed.” The desktop computer is en route to obsolescence even before large segments of the U.S. population have learned how to use it. Taking its place is an increasing array of hand-held devices which require the nimbleness and acuity of youthful hands and eyes.

During the long period of time in which I participated in the lives of older individuals who were exploring a new generation of I-C technology, I observed how they triumphed and despaired over their mini successes and failures with the machine, absorbing both kudos and blows to their self-esteem along the way. I noted the fact that they needed enormous amounts of help and assistance in this endeavor and that they spent considerable sums from dwindling resources of time, energy and money in the process. (In less felicitous circumstances than Flamingo Park, these major learning challenges would have presumably represented impossible costs.) Who can be the final arbiter of the balance of loss and gain in these accounts? There is, in the scope of my research, no obvious way to concretely or “objectively” assess the benefits that individuals may have experienced as a result of exploring computing, e.g.: brains stimulated to grow more synaptic connections; an increase in flexibility of thought; an appropriate stretching of resiliency or a positive plumbing of reserve capacity.

Without such measurements, are we justified in assuming (as mass media and academic literature seem to do) that older adults should want and should be urged to undertake the arduous journey of learning new and complex tasks in their last years? Are we ignoring the positive aspects of non-adoption of new technology? A significant majority of Park residents did not own or use computers during the years of my research. Based on my observations and the passing remarks made or conveyed to me by and about I-C technology non-adopters, my impression is that there were many contented computer-less people there. Perhaps they basked in the knowledge that they had achieved contentment sufficient to see them through the rest of their lives. Perhaps they were not tuned in so closely to the news media as to be bothered by or unduly curious about the ubiquitous pointers to websites, or they had effectively screened them out. In reality, given the present circumstances of old age, non-adoption of new technologies is understandable. The rationale is well described below.

The constraints of old age are not only material but may derive from ill health, loss of social networks, and unfamiliarity with the new. . . . The “problem,” if it is a problem, comes from the lack of resources to move along the learning curve inherent in the need to adapt to any new technology. This insufficiency might be material, but it also derives from reduced energy and, in the sense of perceived life span, even of available time. . . [O]lder people are exposed to new ways of doing things that belong to an era in which they will only marginally participate. Virtually all people who are young today will, when they are older, be able to operate a computer without difficulty. Yet they will face new processes when older which they will find difficult and that will not warrant their time or effort to learn to use. A learning curve is like a playground slide: although once to the top it is possible to enjoy the ride, getting up the stairs to the slide’s starting point becomes increasingly difficult with age. (Raban and Brynin 2006, 43-44)

In truth, an inescapable dilemma awaits us all. It is the tension between keeping-up with that which is imposed by societal change versus coming to terms with our inevitable limitations. Weighing the costs and benefits of keeping pace with cultural innovation, each of us will have to find her own measure of peace and reconciliation as technology brokers try to translate across generations.

Research Recommendations

In my ideal vision of research, the seeker of information or “researcher” has a set of overlapping life experiences with the holder of information or the “study participant.” This body of shared experiences fosters empathy, engagement and nuanced understanding. My own late arrival—in my 5^th decade— to the attempted mastery of ‘new technologies’ provided me with profound appreciation of this challenge for those twenty and thirty years older than I. Furthermore, during the course of this research project I experienced a family tragedy that opened up doors of understanding through which I could not have otherwise walked. It also bonded me more tightly to the participants in the study many of whom had grappled with increasing loss and sorrow as they aged.

Conducting research studies among the elderly requires time and patience. Elderly participants generally respond with deliberation. They enjoy situating their ideas in their life experiences, which often take the form of stories and anecdotes from earlier historical eras. The wisdom they have to offer cannot be adequately ‘captured’ through surveys, questionnaires, brief interviews, laboratory trials or other traditional quantitative methodologies. The vagaries of their health and physical conditions may alter their outlook and responses from one day to the next. In addition, sudden changes in the conditions of their family members and immediate surroundings add to the lability of their outlook and interests. It is only through repeated contacts and prolonged interaction that researchers can attain deep truths from those whose lives span many years.

Footnotes

[1] The Computer Club active membership was two to three dozen people at any given time. In addition, I met several individuals who felt that their level of computing skill was sufficient for their purposes and did not attend Club meetings but they often interacted with Club members. A reasonable estimate of the population who used computers in the Park in the mid-90s is 5 %. By 2008, the Club co-director, George Brinkley, estimated that about 300 people—a little less than 30% of Park residents—were computer users. In 2011 Brinkley estimated that 45% of Park residents have computers in their residences. He also stated that the Club averages 35 attendees per meeting in 2011.

[2] In deference to members of my research population who complained about not being able to keep up with the acronymizing of language, I choose to use this compromise phrase, I-C technology/ies standing for “information-communication technology/ies.” Thus any interested reader has more of a hint of the subject compared with the usual abbreviation, “ICT.” Keeping the word ‘technology’ also affords varying grammatical iterations of it.

[3] I am dedicated to the rightness of allowing the voices of research participants to be heard, and I devoted 194 pages to interview extracts in the dissertation (Linton 2009) based on this research. For this article, in the interest of brevity, I summarize rather than quote participants’ stated feelings.

[4] All names of people and places are pseudonyms. Within this group of research participants, ten are now deceased. Seven spouses of those listed in this essay died during the course of the research project.

[5] We can acknowledge that Marion’s files and Don’s sales data constituted important information for them. In this context, however, I use ‘information’ to mean that which was created by others in the virtual realm and available via Internet browsers.

[6] The cost of hardware dented quite a few budgets in the Park. More than half of those with computers updated their computers and/or peripherals at least once. Some, like Nelson and Sue Jones replaced their equipment multiple times as computing capacities expanded. They spent money “like drunken sailors” squandering, they half jokingly remarked, their children’s inheritance.

[7] This could only take place once Web browsers became more powerful and comprehensive; initially these early computer users had to move through the iterations of Mosaic, Netscape, and several versions of Internet Explorer before they were able to pursue their interests.

[8] In addition to those individuals who attended Computer Club meetings there were a few others in the Park whose computer use and knowledge were much more extensive. Unlike Al Swenson, they were not motivated to teach computer use to a group of beginners such as the Computer Club attendees. However, they were willing to help some of their friends on an occasional basis as their time allowed, clearly serving as “warm experts” for them.

[9] Older Americans are well trained in volunteerism and, in addition, the Park Administration was able to persuade many residents that their volunteered labor contributed, among other things, to maintaining Park solvency.

[10] Given the predominance of females in Flamingo Park, it is surprising that single men would find themselves bereft of companionship, and certainly not all were. It is beyond the scope of this article to account for those who remained solitary, but some factors were their health, mental acuity, grief for a deceased spouse and being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of female residents in a community of 1000.

[11] Their 2011 U. S. Super Bowl ad featured a vignette of a 63-year old rock star being replaced by the current 16 year-old pop icon because the former could not keep up with the number of “Gs” in his cell phone. Other current ads by this retailer show various citizens evidencing frustration as they see newer iterations of what they thought was the latest version of their own laptops and phones.

Appendix 1

Descriptions of Computer Club Members

Encapsulated in these brief descriptions are revealing aspects of the lives and levels of interest in I-C technologies of selected members of the Computer Club (C.C.) in Flamingo Park between 1996 and 2008. Their ages, (in parentheses) indicate their life span during our interaction.

Earliest computer club members and mid-1990s interviewees.

• Barbara Howard (age 82 to 94): former teacher; fervently dedicated to maintaining her computer skills well into her mid-90s; finally turned use over to proxy-friend; her husband did not compute due to ill health but while still alive supported her interest with patience and humor.

• Samuel Dunlop (76 to 89): former pastor; received frequent tech help from son; enjoyed searching the Web; became a devotee of genealogy research; avid user of assistive devices for the visually impaired; his wife did not compute due to eye problems but remained supportive until her death.

• Albert Swenson (83 to 91): former engineer and high school teacher; most exploratory user; eventual C.C. co-director; dedicated to teaching computing to fellow residents which he continued until a week before he died; wild for Skype; wife (stroke victim) vicariously enjoyed family communication through Al’s use.

• Helmut Rossler (88 to 93): former videographer who thought this experience would translate to computing and became depressed when it didn’t; stated that computing was his first/only tech failure; wife commiserated with his efforts to learn about computers but did not attempt use due to failing health.

• Marion Probst (82 to 91): former secretary; only (and therefore frustrated) Mac user in the C.C.; wanted to do pragmatic things like organize files; despite modest efforts, did not become accomplished Internet user; husband not interested in computing and ignored her interest due, possibly, to failing health.

• Don McDonald (70 to 82) still working as salesman; founded the C.C. in order to share his enthusiasm for spreadsheets and to create a personal social outlet; believed that computing was a one-person endeavor; claimed that Internet was evil influence; wife did not use due to ill health.

Interviewees between 1999 and 2008.

• Neva Evans (75 to 85): former teacher/practitioner of holistic therapies; curiosity prompted computing exploration; her physician husband threatened by this technology, didn’t want to hear about/see it; her computer use increased under influence of Park companion, Tally, whom she ‘dated’ after her husband’s death.

• Laslo Unterweg (79 to 88): former high-powered scientist who became increasingly enraged by his unanticipated failure to master computing (except for Solitaire which proved therapeutic); finally turned tech duties over to visiting secretarial assistant/proxy; lived alone.

• Will Mahler (77 to 86): former research laboratory technician; initially comfortable with his computer with which he authored articles for Park Flyer; eventually seemed to lose interest but despite a year of non-use declared he wasn’t done; his wife—an avid reader— was dedicated to not using a computer.

• Myrtle Likert (90 to 97): former utility company employee; was inspired to try (in her late 80s) to learn computing because she saw little children doing it; she grew quickly frustrated by her inability to screen out irrelevant stimuli; eventually closed the door to her computer room but did not unplug the machine.

• Nelson and Sue Jones (89 to 96; 81 to 82): former pilot, former stewardess; he loved all gadgets; enjoyed playing games like Flight Simulator; kept trying to find ways to compute despite losing vision and hearing; Sue used the computer to communicate with family members and make greeting cards.

• Richard Querengasser (“Dr. Q;” 80 to 89): former psychiatrist; first Internet use in 1999 was to order his wife a book on Amazon; even after he could no longer use his computer due to failing health, refused to give up his computing equipment which occupied a large space in his nursing care room.

• Mary and Marvin Cooper (79 to 86; 81 to 83): former homemaker (& current volunteer secretary at local church), former field engineer for utility co.; equal interest at start of use; his interest faded while hers grew; after his death, she became accomplished in page layout; occasional help from children.

• Carmen Nouvel (78): former government employee who learned computing on the job; started exploring the Internet in late 1990s; was disheartened by the computing systems she encountered in libraries and was unable to use; stopped attending C.C. due to a disfiguring cancer in last years of life.

• Sturgis Johnson (85): former business executive; newer Park resident; experienced computer user; became tech tutor and remote-system proxy user for some Park residents, most especially Barbara Howard when her ability to compute faded; his teaching maxim: “the Sturgis way is the only way.”

• George Brinkley (69 to 72): former computer scientist; newer resident and second-generation co-director of C.C.; introduced more contemporary topics into Club meetings; readily acknowledged contributions of original Club founders; he and partner fond of cruises, creating lacunae in C.C. schedules.

Appendix 2

Enlargements of Figures 2-4: “I-C technology instruction by generational age.”

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Professor Emerita Elizabeth Hearne for her well-considered advice for improving successive drafts of this article. I also acknowledge Karen Huffman, Professor Joanne Kaczmarek, Professor Emeritus Bertram Bruce, and Jennifer and Anna Kaczmarek for their reading and constructive feedback. Thanks, too, to Theresa Herman and Jennifer Kaczmarek for their instruction/help with the graphics and to Stephen Bruce for his French and Russian translations of the abstract.

Baris Aktemur saved me many hours of work by scanning my research photographs, one of which is included on page 1.

* The contents of this article are subject to the following Creative Commons Public License “Attribution-NonCommerical-Share Alike 2.5” and thus may be freely copied, distributed or displayed under these conditions: that the author be notified of this use and that the paper is not to be modified without the express permission of the author.

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[For a morecomprehensive overview of the literature that informed my research, link to “Citations for a Qualitative Research Project” at:] http://hdl.handle.net/2142/26527