Elderly People and the Barriers to Digital Education

The digitalisation process and an ageing population are two phenomena that characterise the dynamics of contemporary societies. The literature on the digital grey divide highlights how the elderly population often has low digital literacy and poor use of technology, which exposes them to the risk of exclusion. Hence, the importance of intervention, with educational projects able to improve the digital skills of the elderly population and foster active ageing processes. This research compares data from 1,381 questionnaires collected in 2019 and 2022 (before and after the health emergency) in order to investigate the frequency of use of digital devices, comfort in using them (and the resulting estimated digital literacy), and opinions and motivations related to technology and digital training and educational initiatives. The main barriers to educational projects and difficulties concern the disconnection of the majority of the over- sixties, their lack of use and comfort in using digital devices, and above all the extremely low level of motivation to improve in this respect. All this is in the context of an opinion of the digital world that has worsened rather than improved between 2019 and 2022.