Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 16, 1995 TAG: 9507170010
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAMES SCHULTZ LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Long
And they do, these 11 members of Christopher Newport University's LifeLong Learning Society. This day, in a class whose youngest student is 58, Moore leads an exploration of Microsoft Works, a spreadsheet program.
As the exercise starts out, everyone in the class owns a widget company and so must figure widget manufacturing and operating costs, along with profit margins. Eventually, students move to more practical matters, calculating monthly payments on newly purchased homes and late-model cars.
Doris Epstein, who gives her age as ``in my 70s,'' looks up from the keyboard for a moment to reflect on why she enrolled in the summer course. She gestures at the narrow panes of glass to her left that line the classroom's painted cinder-block walls.
``I thought Windows were windows. I didn't know it had something to do with computers,'' Epstein said. ``I love computers. I wish I were many years younger and started many years ago.''
By the end of this year, the percentage of older Americans with a computer at home will have leapfrogged tenfold, to 21 percent, since 1980, estimates SeniorNet, a San Francisco-based nonprofit computer clearinghouse and online network for older Americans.
``Just now, computers are starting to become a real consumer product,'' said Richard Adler, vice president of development for SeniorNet. ``Older adults are looking at the technology and saying, `Now we can see the benefits. This begins to make sense.'''
Seniors are becoming interested because they realize that computers and electronic mail enable them to stay in touch with family and friends, he said. Financial-planning programs also come in handy for retirement and vacations.
Older Americans don't fear technology, but many view it with a more skeptical eye. A bare majority of those over the age of 50 - 52 percent - say they like computers and technology. That compares with a 72 percent favorable rating among respondents younger than 50, according to a survey last year by the Times Mirror Center for The People and The Press.
``A lot of older people won't have anything to do with computers,'' said Christopher Newport University instructor Moore. ``They seem to be a big mystery. It's a fairly small percentage who actually are willing to get hands-on experience.''
Williamsburg resident Duncan McIver, 62, is one of those who can't get enough of computers and the networks into which they're plugged.
McIver, a retired NASA engineer and manager now working as a marketing director for a small engineering firm in Hampton, subscribes to several online services and can read computerized versions of daily newspapers.
He is trying to teach his wife, Pat, about the joys of computing. It's a message McIver would like to get out to the rest of the world.
``My social friends and I talk about Internet,'' McIver said. ``I get excited - and see their eyes glaze over. But once they're there, they're excited, too.''
For those shut off from the mainstream of life by illness or age, computers can be a lifeline, says Douglas McConatha, West Chester (Pa.) University professor of anthropology and sociology.
McConatha has conducted studies of the effects of computers on the lives of the infirm elderly, particularly those in nursing homes. He has a vivid memory of one of his subjects, a 73-year-old widower with Parkinson's disease.
The man, who used a wheelchair, had severely limited use of his upper body. But he was able to laboriously tap out commands with a pencil on a computer keyboard. Before too long, the man was ordering products and information from online networks: T-shirts, a VCR and the latest specs on Buick automobiles.
``He was transformed from a person in a wheelchair not talking to anybody to someone at the computer every day,'' McConatha said. ``He woke up from this difficulty. For a number of months, he became a different person entirely.''
Norfolk Senior Center executive director Barbara J. Quale is leading efforts to set up a computer lab next year.
``Our focus is to keep people who are retired active and involved in the community, and a way to feel good about themselves,'' she said. ``The computer is a way of doing that. Computers offer an opportunity to broaden one's experience; lifelong learning is something most people want.''
As the biggest generation in American history, the so-called baby boomers, heads into retirement, Adler of SeniorNet predicts a profound change in retirement patterns.
Replacing pursuit of leisure will be an intense involvement with creative activities and community service. Lifelong learning won't be a slogan, but a daily experience for older citizens.
At the center of those lives will be a computer, or a descendant version thereof.
``Baby boomers will take computers quite rapidly into old age with them. They will be a normal part of life,'' agreed McConatha.
Meantime, there is yet more computer instruction in the works for the Christopher Newport lifelong learners. Teacher Moore plans to offer additional computer-related courses in the fall.
``I remember a quote by [science fiction writer] Isaac Asimov: `I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them,''' Moore said.
by CNB