The Young Old Design Lab, which creates services for older people, conducted a large study in the spring of 2020, focusing on the values, lifestyles and communication practices of older people who are actively involved in the digital environment.

Beeline acted as a partner in the project, supplementing the results of a qualitative study of the Young Old laboratory with the impersonal data of Beeline.Analytica, which demonstrate how actively elders use the Internet and its capabilities.

It is surprising how often similar materials “overlap”. I have already written about this, but I never cease to be amazed at the phenomenon: as soon as I give the finished text for typesetting, with a high degree of probability additional or separate information arrives, which just asks for an addition to the already sent one. Valentin is very familiar with this phenomenon of mine at our layout, and for sure has already mentally expressed everything he thinks about this more than once. Moreover, this is not necessarily a relevant topic for Russia, for example, today we are talking about complementary materials from different countries. Let’s read the data from “Beeline.Analytika”, the topic is interesting, and we love the numbers.

“The main findings of the study:

• The “new elders” are a fundamentally new generation that has clear and understandable values.
• Contrary to stereotypes, they are aimed at development and self-realization, remain at the center of modern culture.
• “New seniors” need thought-out services and projects that will allow them to live an active life, find new meanings in adulthood and fully use the capabilities of advanced technologies ”.

Praised the “new elders”, well done. There is nothing to object and there is no need, but all this is rhetoric from the arsenal of the captain’s statements Obvious. So that readers are imbued with the importance and relevance of the study. Are you inspired? Very good, let’s get down to specifics.

“The study revealed that the ‘new seniors’ are very active on the Internet and, moreover, their level of ‘digitalization’ is steadily growing. Data from Beeline. Analytics clearly illustrate this fact: compared to the previous year, in 2020, the average Internet traffic per user over 60 increased by 102% (and during the pandemic – April-May of this year compared to January-February – traffic increased by 21%) “.

We have already examined the reasons for the rapid growth in traffic consumption. And the growing activity of Internet users of all age groups here is largely forced, largely provoked by the actions of the cellular operators themselves. In general, traffic consumption growth statistics is a dangerous topic, and I would not advise operators to delve too deeply into it. And then people begin to think and ask questions like “and really, why?”. The result is a clear illustration not so much of the growth in the level of digitalization of people over 60, but of the constant growth in the amount of advertising fed to people. Beeline is right about one thing here: older people are less aware of the methods of protection from the muddy advertising wave, and, accordingly, the spectacular growth of the Internet activity of the elderly is, as it were, programmed.

“Seniors actively use instant messengers for communication. The top 3 most popular communication apps include WhatsApp, Viber and Skype. The average volume of Internet traffic in messengers compared to 2019 increased by 129% among older users living in Russian cities with a population of over one million. Again, the pandemic has become an obvious incentive to master them: in March-April, the use of instant messengers increased by 73% compared to January-February 2020. Especially during this time, the average traffic of the “new seniors” in the FaceTime video calling application has grown – this figure has almost tripled compared to the period before the quarantine. “

Here everything is written very correctly. If for some of the ordinary citizens the pandemic turned out to be useful, then it is just for those who involuntarily began to actively master the technologies of remote communication.

“Contrary to stereotypes,“ new elders ”can be found not only in Odnoklassniki: many use different social networks, shoot stories for Instagram and blog on YouTube.

The most popular applications in terms of traffic consumption among this category of subscribers during the period of self-isolation were Facebook (+ 32%), VKontakte (+ 27%) and Odnoklassniki (+ 20%).

It is curious that the elders are actively mastering social networks as a working tool for their professional development: promoting a business, monetizing hobbies, looking for classes and courses for self-development and training. “

Oh, these long-suffering “Classmates” for me, for whatever sins they were accused! But Facebook as the leader in the growth of traffic consumption among the elderly surprised me. It seems to me that there must be some additional weighty reason. For example, a disproportionately fast growth in video ad volumes compared to other social networks. Or a significant, above average, “weight” of advertising. Or other reasons. I would like to hear from Facebook users, have you noticed any unusual changes in the proposed content?

“More than half of the respondents noted that it is more difficult for them to find friends, business partners, and like-minded people with age, but finding a partner or spouse is a real“ pain ”: 81% of respondents stressed that after 60 years of age they experience problems with romantic acquaintances.

To solve this problem, seniors are actively using modern technologies: over the past year, the use of dating services among this audience has grown by 71% (during the period of self-isolation, there was another surge – an increase of 29%). However, most of them have a negative experience of using dating sites and dating apps: they are regarded by their elders as unsafe, with an inadequate sample of candidates and not conducive to the development of communication and constructive dialogue. “

Hmmm, 81% of respondents over 60 have problems with romantic acquaintances, and dating sites turned out to be inadequate candidates and generally do not facilitate constructive dialogue. Probably, the problem of “strange” answers is that people at this age put a slightly different meaning in the very concept of “romantic acquaintance”. And those tools for facilitating acquaintances that the market now offers them do not suit them.

“Based on the special communication requirements of the“ new elders ”, the YoungOld team, with the support of Beeline, announces the start of the development of the Older platform solution for creating dating and searching like-minded people among 60+ users throughout Russia.

“We see that today’s elders are completely different from the stereotypical ideas about ‘retirees’, and our research fully confirms these observations. Seniors want to spend the second half of their lives consciously, actively and meaningfully, – say the creators of Young Old Tatyana Drozdova and Ekaterina Kurasheva. – Obviously, projects and services that are invented taking into account the real needs of elders and are based on current technological solutions can and should help them in this, because digital has become a familiar environment for them as well. The Older Senior Communication Platform is the first step in this direction. “

So we got to the bottom of it, we are talking about promoting the new Older platform, which was developed as a tool for communication between seniors. Actually, why not? If interested, go to myolder.ru, there is a full version of the study.

Well, in conclusion, a quote on what Young Old does, because the communication platform is only part of the project:

“Young Old (young-old.ru) is a design laboratory that creates services and tools to help older people live more conscious and happy lives. The Young Old team is engaged in research on the problems of older age, development of programs for brands focused on seniors, creates its own products, and conducts a variety of educational activities. The main project of the team is a large city festival of education, creativity, contemporary art and technology “Young Old: New Seniors” for senior citizens and their loved ones, which takes place in Moscow and other regions of Russia. “

PS

The last time I re-read what I had written, checked the pictures and got into the mail to send. Yeah, “three times ha!” There is already a fresh press release from Tele2 on this topic. Such a good one, with a bunch of interesting figures and all kinds of analytics. At work, damn it, the phenomenon of mutual attraction of different materials on the same topic. No, this time I won’t go over to rewrite everything, I’ll leave it as it is. I will read your reviews, maybe I will find something useful and interesting for many, then I will calmly deal with the Tele2 material. Otherwise, you can get to the absurdity of multiple rewriting and rewriting of one material and turning it into a monster, which the majority does not even reach the middle of. So see you soon!

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