Half million Dutch seniors still without internet connection

Internet and mobile telephony are much less used among Dutch over-75s than TV and fixed-line services. Seniors use the new methods of communication less and are also less interested in the new services, according to the report 'Seniors and digitisation' from Telecompaper. There are around 1.2 million people over the age of 75 in the Netherlands. Almost half (46%) don't have internet connections, equal to around 500,000 people. The figures come from a survey in June by Telecompaper that questioned almost 600 children and grandchildren about the telecom habits of their parents or grandparents. 

Seniors are also less likely to have mobile phones. Around 80 percent of the Dutch aged 12-80 have smartphones, but this is only 13 percent of those over 75. Including feature phones, just 55 percent of seniors have mobile devices. The survey also found that tablets are more common than smartphones among those over 75. Just over a quarter of over-75s have tablets, twice as many as those with smartphones. Especially people over 85 were likely to have tablets, at 17 percent versus only 4 percent of this group using smartphones. 

The figures suggest seniors are still a potential growth market for telecom providers, but not necessarily an easy one to reach. Around 70 percent of the seniors asked family members or acquaintances for help in the past three months, with things like tuning TV channels. They also suffer from a lack of confidence about their age or expertise in using services like internet.