From Joseph F. Coughlin’s (MIT AgeLab) Disruptive Demographics blog: While you and your colleagues and peers may be tethered to your smartphones, and debate their merits rather than the Yankees and Red Sox, the statistical fact (Nielsen) is that adults 45+ in the US aren’t adopting smartphones in proportion to their numbers–and are far behind the same age cohort in Japan and Europe. This demographic only accounts for 10% of each OS. Reasons why are not ‘fear of technology’–hardly: high cost (totaling thousands for a two-year contract) at a time when many are rebudgeting; the habit of desktops and laptops (and their easier use); and this group has figured out how to get information, tasks and video-watching done without always being connected online or torturing themselves with tiny screens. When carriers get the cost of phones and plans in line, and some ‘killer apps’–maybe in health–that are must haves, then this group will calculate the ROI in time and money, and start to adopt. What this means for healthcare targeted to this group? Text, text, text. Why US baby boomers are slow to buy smart phones: technophobes or value buyers?
[Should Ed. Donna tell you the one about the retiring executive who, on his last drive home from work, took his ‘always on’ office BlackBerry and his tie, and tossed both into the Hudson River?]