Tuesdays are for silver surfers at Five Bells pub in North London. Today, a white-haired lady walks with her cane, carrying a laptop on a black suitcase; an elderly man with dreads plays music sat at a table; and a blonde woman writes names on sticky tags.
Free cups of steaming tea and coffee keep sliding through the room in the waitress’s tray. The blonde woman asks if anyone needs a cuppa – she’s Toni Kopple, the owner of Five Bells Computer Club.
People gather in Five Bells pub in Finchley. Photo by Sara Valle
“Some people just come for chat, some people just come because it’s a warm space and they don't have to heat their home, and other people come because they really need some help,” she says.
Statistics by global social media analysts Kepios show that over five billion people around the world use the internet everyday – that’s over 66% of the population. But those who didn’t grow up with technology often struggle to get to grips with digitisation.
This is called the Grey Digital Divide, and it has a wide-ranging impact on the health, well-being, social inclusion, and economic participation of the elderly. The term was coined by Peter Millward, a Professor of Contemporary Sociology in Liverpool back in 2003. Now, community groups like Five Bells Computer Club aim to breach the gap.
“As more and more services move online, our club has grown in popularity, and we have between 20 and 40 people joining us each week,” says Kopple.
The group started in 2016 in response to a London Borough of Barnet initiative, EFAB: East Finchley Altogether Better. Different groups like walking and mindfulness groups formed in response, but this is one of the few that survived – perhaps out of sheer need.
“There’s a lot of lonely people in Barnet who don’t talk to others on a weekly basis, so the whole idea behind EFAB was to get people out of their homes and socialising.”
Data collected by Lloyds Bank UK in 2018 estimated that over four million people in the UK had zero Internet skills and almost six and a half million adults only had limited online skills.
Although it’s expected the numbers will decline, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) estimated that almost eight million people will still lack digital skills by 2025.
Adults over the age of 65 have consistently made up the largest proportion of Internet non-users, according to the Office of National Statistics. Community groups like Five Bells Computer Club offer an avenue for those who are keen to learn.
“It’s a fantastic mixture of social enterprise, learning something at the same time,” says Brigitte Whatley, a Five Bells Tuesday regular who helps with the hot drinks and the name tags. “I belong to the dinosaurs; I haven’t grown up with computers.”
But it took Whatley a year to gather the courage to attend her first session. The same happened to Rio Baker and Antony Darby, who joined the group to get help with their online finances.
Brigitte Whatley (left) and Rio Baker (right) attend Five Bells every Tuesday. Photo by Sara Valle
“I needed to improve my pathetic skills with technology generally, but I like to socialise anyway,” says Darby, as he jokes about the “good-looking girls” around him. Darby is deaf and struggles sometimes making appointments.
“I was shocked when I saw my son pointing out and things and paying for the parking, groceries, everything. Now I can point at things when I go to the shops and pay too.”
Lloyd’s Bank UK’s research also found that 40% of people claim that being online helps them feel less alone, which is even more important for disabled people like Darby, who are 27% more likely to express this than non-disabled people.
According to Statista, it’s estimated the average person will have almost 5,000 interactions online by next year. The World Health Organisation predicted in 2022 that in the next 25 years the world’s population of people aged 60 or over will double.
“As organisations lean more and more towards automation and efficiency humans are removed from the process, forcing people to adapt to the technology rather than the system being able to adapt to them,” says James Bore, 40, a Chartered Security Professional from London.
“If the systems are well-designed to be usable and accessible, they have the potential to bring huge benefits. But poor integrations, badly designed processes, and a focus on efficiency and automation above people leaves people excluded.”
So, as the population ages and the world become more and more digitised, it begs the question: will we still need groups like Five Bells Computer Club in 50 years’ time?
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