Cyber cafes are bright, high-tech places with ergonomic furniture and espresso machines, frequented by young people from all over the world who pay about £4 an hour to surf, send emails or play games. While this may sound attractive to many of us, it is a bit off-putting to an older person who knows we're in the middle of an IT revolution and wants to take part, but doesn't know how to turn on a computer, let alone hold a mouse, scroll down an Internet page or find a web address. Older people need a place they can learn how to access the Internet, without "culture shock" says Paddy Carey (in his early 50s), who teaches Internet skills at Ireland's only cyber cafe for the over 55s, in the somewhat unlikely venue of St Ann's Church on Dawson Street, Dublin.
After passing the tourists who have come to see the building and having gone through the cafe (a cosy teashop called the "friendly room"), older people keen to decipher the mysteries of the Web must venture through tall wooden doors. The room is little more than a large windowless cupboard. It is a sunny summer's day, so it's hot and airless, but this doesn't put off the senior Internet surfers. Sitting silently, engrossed in their glowing computer screens, seemingly unaware of the heat, are two women who have never used a computer until today.
"My family told me, in a few years' time, there'll be nothing else. You might be out of the world if you don't know how to use the Internet," says one nervous-looking woman (60), who finds using the keyboard difficult, but wants to master emails. On her first day, with assistance from the ever-patient Carey, she successfully sends an e-greeting card. "Older people feel more comfortable here than in a typical cyber cafe," says Carey, whose oldest student is an 84-yearold retired chemist. "At first, they are hesitant to come in, until they see the atmosphere and that clears them of any nervousness. Many people who come in here are anxious to use email, to keep in touch with family and friends abroad. Or they are pressurised by younger family members who say `you're not going to touch that PC until you've learnt how to use it'.
"They look up travel information - from Bermuda to Belmullet - and also health information - everything from osteoporosis to cancer. One man found information and a picture of an infected ingrown toenail, just like his, he said, and copied details to take to his doctor. And we get all kinds of people, from retired clergymen to housewives."
The brainchild of Canon Adrian Empey, the cyber cafe, with four computers, was set up in April as a collaboration between the European Institute of Women's Health and Martin Maguire of Connect Ireland. "The aim is to introduce people to the Internet," says Empey. "We don't aim to turn out highly professional people but this gets them started on it, in an atmosphere where there are no young people whizzing around pressing buttons.
"Many people over 55 are very inhibited. Some of them don't know what a mouse is. That's a question they often ask. So Paddy shows them `this is a mouse' and gets them beyond the jargon, and shows them that it's really not as difficult as it sounds. The jargon puts people off more than the technology."
"This is a wonderful place," says Erika Morton-Blake, a lively 59-year-old wearing flowered trousers and a Levi's T-shirt, who has used the cyber cafe once a week since her first visit as a complete beginner, a few months ago. "I can find things here I can't find anywhere else. I like to follow my interests, like rockabilly music from the 1950s, because I was teenager then." Anne Campbell, in her 50s, has recently returned from 30 years in South Africa and wants to keep in touch with friends there and with her children in the US and Scotland - as well as save money on her phone bills. "I had a computer at home for 10 years and never used it. Now I don't have one, I've started to learn."
Clearly, over-55s do not want to be left out of this new IT world. One hundred and 50 older people applied for a one-off Internet course with 10 places, advertised by Age and Opportunity in Dublin. Currently, the Government's Information Society Commission (ISC) is running a "roadshow", a mobile IT unit which offers one-day Internet training for "late adopters" of new technology, such as some older people, farmers and the unemployed. One hundred and 30 members of one Dublin active retirement group applied for the eight places.
"We want everyone in the country to be involved. We're anxious to include everyone, especially if they suffer from a mobility problem, either now or in the future," says Sile de Burca of the ISC, who supports the idea of having the Internet in residential and nursing homes for the elderly. Web use by older people is clearly growing, although Irish figures are not available. According to the American Association of Retired Persons, 75 per cent of people in their 50s have access to the Internet, while a recent study by Media Matrix found the over 50s are the fastest growing group of Internet users.
"In Australia and the US, older people are amongst the greatest users of the Internet, because it's so much cheaper. Here, it's relatively dear," says Michael Gorman of Age and Opportunity, who is evangelical on the issue of older people's access to the Internet. "The great thing about the Net is it enables you to develop your mind and to keep in touch with people around the globe, without the need to get around."
As awareness of the marketing opportunities to older people rises, the number of websites and virtual communities targeted at that age-group is increasing. One Irish woman whose friendships made on the website, SeniorCom, have changed her life is 72-year-old Catherine Walshe, from Macroom, Co Cork. The first female engineer to be employed by a local authority (in 1964), she says she was a convert to the Web when a Macintosh computer gave her "a reason for living" after a serious illness. On her recent 3,500-mile train trip around the US to visit her closest cyber friends, she was accompanied by a film crew and the result, Cyber Sisters, will be shown on RTE this autumn, as part of the Grey Voyagers series. And forget chocolates and flowers as gifts for this generation of cyber pensioners. "Mother's Day 2000, I was the happiest mother in the universe. My mother's day gift from my eldest son, Jack, was an extra 128 megabytes of memory for my iMac. If only it could be surgically installed into my oh-too-human brain . . ."
"It's wonderful to see older people fired up with an enthusiasm for new ideas and learning a new skill," says St Ann's verger, Trevor Plowman. "They don't feel left behind in the modern world."
St Ann's Church cyber cafe, Dawson Street, Dublin 2, is open Monday to Friday, noon-3 p.m. All over-55s welcome. No advance booking. Internet access/training is free, but donations are welcomed.
This and other articles on this page are on The Irish Times website at www.ireland.com
For details of the ISC roadshow, call 1890- 456666. For details of your local Internet services (e.g. location, times, tuition, cost, wheelchair access), phone 1890-213013 or see www.isc.ie
Catherine Walshe's webpage: www.sleepinggiant.ie/~katcha
Age and Opportunity (under reconstruction): http:// indigo.ie/~ageandop
US/Australian websites/communities aimed at older people:
www.seniorsonline.net.au
www.senior.com
www.aarp.org
www.seniornet.org
www.thirdage.com
YOUR VIEW
Last week we asked: `Should certain sites on the Internet be censored?' You said:
YES: 45% NO: 55%
This week's question: `Are older people being left behind by the information revolution?'
Cast your vote at: www.ireland.com/technology