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Friday July 15, 2005

Older generation ambling along on the Internet superhighway

by steven friedman
correspondent

Mark Steiner doesn’t get out much anymore, if at all. But the 58-year-old resident of the Jewish Home in San Francisco, hobbled by Parkinson’s disease, sometimes travels and shops into the wee hours of the morning.

How does he do it?

“I’ve been on the Internet for five years,” said Steiner, who was born in Trenton, N.J. but grew up in Los Angeles. “The Internet has meant I’m able to go out in the world.”

Steiner is among a growing number of elders, many at retirement communities, who’ve become either Internet-savvy or are good enough to simply log on and send messages. Senior citizens are using the Internet to stay in touch with family and friends via e-mail, to shop, join interest groups or do research.

“There are Web sites on Parkinson’s disease that are very good,” said Steiner, who has a bachelor’s degree in political science but worked as a cab driver, postal worker and pizza-maker. “There is a lot of interesting research.”

Steiner, who grew up with “no Jewish background,” even used the Internet to download the mourner’s Kaddish, which he recited for his father.

For Steiner, the biggest advantage of the Internet is it’s a bulwark against loneliness. “I can shop or do research in the middle of the night when I have nothing else to do,” he said.

Remaining connected to life through the Internet is often less complicated for older people. Art Sherlock, 86, a resident at the Reutlinger Center for Jewish Living in Danville, uses the computer to stay linked to what’s happening in the Jewish world. He reads a Jewish newspaper for weekly updates on Jewish news, gets “the weekly newsletter of the American Jewish Committee, and the Torah portion from my synagogue, Temple Isaiah,” he noted.

But Rose Fishman, 93, like Steiner, finds that using the computer fills a real need in this stage of her life. “I find that the computer is really a fill-in for older people,” said Fishman, who recently moved from San Rafael to Mission Viejo to be closer to family. “So you’re thinking about more than old age.”

Fishman first logged on about seven years ago after her son, an attorney, suggested she use e-mail to stay in touch with family and friends. Her initial response was: “What’s e-mail?” Her son-in-law hooked her up first with Web TV and then she bought her first computer, a thin-line Dell.

“The Internet saves me a lot of time,” said Fishman, who moved to California from Chicago in 1973 with her late husband, Jules. “It’s just instantaneous.”

Elders have plenty of time, but writing letters or using the phone are not always the easiest of tasks. Maintaining contact with loved ones is one of the major reasons why elders venture into cyberspace.

“There are only three things we need,” said Zoe Landau, 80, also a resident at Reutlinger. “Good food, a good night’s sleep, and the ability to keep in touch with loved ones. The Internet helps me keep my mind going.”

Landau sends notes to her grandkids, several of whom live in Salt Lake City, and she uses the Internet for research.

“The excitement is that I’ve come across genealogy about the Landau family from 1869,” said the former social worker, who took a computer class at Reutlinger several months ago.

Sherlock, a retired real estate broker born in San Francisco, stays in contact with his grandson, a student at the California Maritime University in Vallejo, who is on a South Seas research cruise. “I also love to send out cards and jokes to friends and family for different occasions. If the jokes are clean enough, I’ll send them off,” he said.

Doing research, reading the New York Times’ online edition, buying books from Amazon, and e-mailing across the globe are all important to Sydney Rosen. But she sold her grandmother’s diamond ring to purchase a computer for primarily one reason: “I was interested in the Concord, Massachusetts Writer’s Group, a correspondence group dedicated to the works of Henry David Thoreau,” said Rosen, 80, a former journalist who has a Ph.D. in East Asian intellectual history. “I now have access to the group and read what other people are saying.”

While seniors do buy products on the Internet or use it to book trips, some are concerned about sharing their credit-card numbers and other private information, as identity theft and other frauds are becoming increasingly common.

“I don’t like shopping on the Internet,” said Rosen. “I like to actually go to the shops for the personal contact and see what I’m getting. I’m a little nervous lately about security on the Internet.”

But generally, the Internet experience for elders has been overwhelmingly a positive and often awe-inspiring one.

Sherlock, who still communicates with family friends in Scotland, said the Internet is a “reference desk for information about anything,” but also a lot more. “It is mind-boggling to be able to track airplanes,” he said.

The older generation may be ambling along in the slower lanes on the Internet superhighway, but they are certainly picking up speed.

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