A new initiative to tackle loneliness amongst the elderly has suggested that they should be taught basic digital skills such as how to send emails, use search engines and go on to social networking sites.
The call comes from think tank Policy Exchange, which says that the entire British population should be online by 2020.
It estimates that spending £875 million on educating the 6.2 million people who do not have basic digital skills – the equivalent of £141 per person – would lead to huge economic and societal benefits for the UK. Currently four out of ten people aged 65 or over do not have access to the internet at home, with over 5 million having never used the internet.
With the number of people aged 85 or above set to double over the next 20 years, along with families increasingly living hundreds of miles from each other, the risk of loneliness is a major challenge for policymakers.
It has been estimated that one in ten people visit their GP because they are lonely, and research suggests that lonely adults are more likely to undergo emergency hospitalisation and early admission into residential or nursing care.
Addressing this isolation could prove to be one of the most cost-effective strategies for countering the rising costs of caring for an ageing population, says the think tank.
“Being able to simply write an email or access a social networking site could provide older people with a way to stay connected to their friends and families, who may live hundreds of miles away,” explained Eddie Copeland, author of the report. “Maintaining these important relationships will help an ageing society vulnerable to loneliness and disconnection from a fast moving modern world.”
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