the role of intergenerational relationships in

adults’ (non)use of information technologies

paper for Special Session: ‘Coming of age? The geographies of intergenerational

relationships’, RGS-IBG conference, London UK, 28th-31st August 2007

Neil Selwyn
London Knowledge Lab
Institute of Education, University of London, UK

n.selwyn@ioe.ac.uk
 the role of intergenerational relationships in
adults’ (non)use of information technologies

Abstract: This paper explores the role of intergenerational relationships in

facilitating, supporting and shaping adults’ (non)engagement with IT. Based on
data from in-depth interviews (n=100) the paper describes the varying roles that
intergenerational relationships with others play in adults’ acquisition and adoption
of computers, whilst also highlighting the inequalities inherent in such contact.
Despite the diversity of others available to support IT use, most adults’ use of
computers was found to take place within narrow, ‘traditional’ social networks;
drawn predominantly from individuals’ existing kinship networks. These others
acted as important sources of information (especially in the initial stages of
acquisition) but also played vital roles in enabling and, in some cases, regulating
respondents’ access to technology. Once having acquired access to IT, many
adults’ ongoing use of IT was then subject to negotiated collaboration (or conflict)
with others; fitting IT around the existing dynamics and patterns of everyday life
and social relationships. The paper concludes with a discussion of how although
these tensions appear to often lead to the social reproduction of inequalities
(especially in terms of gender, age and stage of ‘adulthood’) they were also being
used, in some cases, to empower non-IT using individuals.

2
 the role of intergenerational relationships in
adults’ (non)use of information technologies

Introduction

With new technologies now an integral part of the social, economic and cultural
fabric of developed societies, it is taken as given that all adults should be making
some use of information technology (IT) in their day-to-day lives. Indeed, one of
the key features of the twenty-first century ‘information society’ is a pervading
moral imperative for adults of all ages to be able to use ITs to survive, and
hopefully thrive, as citizens, employees and consumers. So the fact that use of IT
is not evenly distributed across the adult population is cause presently for political
concern. The spectre of the ‘digital divide’ – political shorthand for the entrenched
social stratification of IT use along the lines of age, socio-economic status, gender,
race and disability – is now a major issue for policymakers and academics who are
seeking to understand and address inequalities in people’s (non)engagement with
IT (e.g. Selwyn and Facer 2007, van Dijk 2006).

Although often described in terms of levels of non-engagement with ITs amongst

specific social groups, attempts to address the digital divide have been
conceptualised primarily at the level of the individual. In the first instance
individual citizens are expected to take responsibility for engaging with ITs in the
home, community and/or workplace. Where individuals are unable to do so,
governments have developed a range of interventions where those lacking the
requisite technological access or skills (the ‘have nots’ in digital divide parlance)
can be compensated via public provision of hardware, software and training. Once
these basic inequalities of opportunity have been addressed then, to appropriate
the title of a recent UK government report, it is left to the individual to ‘get on
with IT’ themselves. Indeed, having reached what could be considered to be
adequate levels of IT availability via the domestic marketplace and community
provision, governments in many developed nations have begun recently to
downplay and even dismiss the existence of a digital divide (see Selwyn 2006).

Yet viewing (non)use of IT purely in technical terms of individuals’ technological

access obscures the many social factors within which technology use is
embedded. In particular, other people are often overlooked as an integral element
of how adults engage, or not, with ITs such as computers and the internet.
Although some authors are keen to evoke notions of the individual computer user
“[sitting] alone in front of a keyboard and a screen” (Wellman 2001, p.2031)
separated from the ‘world of humanity’ (Healy 1998), using IT is not a completely
individualistic and isolated activity. Indeed, ‘significant others’ represent a crucial
element of accessing and engaging effectively with IT, with the size and nature of
an individual’s network of relevant social contacts identified as underpinning the
development and sustenance of their use of IT (Di Maggio & Hargittai, 2001;
Fountain, 1997).

Any computer user should recognise from personal experience how their use of IT
is increasingly about being able to draw upon ‘expert’ sources of support to help
utilise ever-powerful computer systems that the vast majority of users will never
fully use, let alone understand. As Kitchen (1998: 112) observes “we are
becoming increasingly reliant on ‘computer experts’ … to guide us through the
rapid developments and sort out our daily problems”. Aside from formal ‘experts’
such as technical support found in the workplace, the importance of less formal
‘warm experts’ in the development of computer use should also be recognised –
i.e. friends, family members and other personal contacts not necessarily with

3
formal technological expertise who nonetheless act as competent mediators
between the technology and the lay-user (Bakardjieva 2005). This combination of
formal and informal sources of technical expertise is therefore an integral part of
what Giacquita et al. (1993) refer to as the ‘social envelope’ of computer use. As
Seither (2003, p.103) concludes:

“friendships, kin networks and work relationships are crucial to the

successful adoption of new technologies such as computers. Computer use
often involves borrowing software, troubleshooting problems, trying out
new programs, boasting or discussing successes, cross checking machines.
Advice and encouragement are important components of this”.
Researching the role of intergenerational significant others in adults’ use of IT

The significance of these different forms of expertise and support is most

commonly framed in theoretical terms of ‘social capital’. Social capital can be
seen as social obligations or connections between an individual and networks of
other significant individuals, organisations and institutions that can be called upon
for mobilisation of their own material resources, knowledge, skills or ‘know-how’
(see Coleman 1988, Putnam 1993). Although conceptually useful, the theoretical
predications of social capital have tended to steer media and communications
researchers towards questions of how IT use shapes an individual’s social contacts
rather than how social contacts may shape an individual’s IT use. For example,
many researchers have explored how ITs may provide new ways of sustaining and
‘generating’ social capital in offline and online communities (e.g. Resnick 2002,
Wellman 2001). Much of empirical work on IT and social capital has examined how
‘computer supported social networks’ influence patterns of social contact and
solidarity in society (e.g. Wellman et al. 1996, Quan-Haase et al. 2002, Kavanaugh
and Patterson 2002). Whilst this body of literature rightly reflects the importance
of IT as a means of communication and contact with others, it has perhaps
distracted the attention of social researchers away from the more prosaic, but
nevertheless important, role of social contact between and across generations in
supporting and shaping (both materially and conceptually) people’s use of IT.

That said, a few studies have sought to shed light on the role of others in shaping
adults’ IT use. For example, Wyatt et al.’s (2003) study of people’s use of the
internet for seeking health information identified the importance of others such as
close friends in assisting individuals at all stages of the inquiry process; from the
initial appropriation of computers, development of computer skills and the
eventual making sense of information retrieved from websites. Wyatt’s work
echoes Graham Murdock’s earlier ethnographic study of computer use in an
English housing estate which identified networks of friends, relatives, neighbours
and other local sources of technological expertise as underpinning individuals’
computer use via the ‘borrowing’ of equipment, exchanging of software and
swapping of information and anecdotes (Murdock et al. 1996). Other ethnographic
studies looking at adults’ and children’s domestic use of ITs have also reported
peer-to-peer mentoring from partners, children, friends and work-colleagues to be
a common method of learning to use computers (Lally 2002, Facer et al. 2003).

Although implicit in many of these studies, the issue of inter-generational support

has been often glossed over within the new media literature above and beyond
the specific patterns of media engagement within the stages of childhood/youth
and (to a lesser extent) old age. If considered at all, intergenerational concerns
have been portrayed usually within an exaggeratedly (dis)empowered model of
older adults’ (un)successful engagement with ITs where older ICT users are either
portrayed as omnipotent ‘silver surfers’ who are fully wired-up and technologically
active, or else marooned in a technological ‘grey gap’ and comfortable only with
televisions, telephones and transistor radios. Besides these caricatured extremes,
little attention is paid to the role of generational relations in what older (and

4
younger) adults are doing with ITs, and how engagement may vary between
individuals and social groups.

Against this background we would contend that more attention should be paid to
the key question (especially in terms of the ‘digital divide’ debate) of how
intergenerational relationships with significant others of all ages may alleviate or
exacerbate inequalities in IT use between different social groups. Given the
obvious importance of others in framing and shaping an individual’s
(non)engagement with IT, the present paper seeks to develop a more thorough
understanding of the influence of others on how adults either do, or do not, “make
sense of, give meaning to, and accomplish functions through technical objects”
(Caron and Caronia 2001, p.39). To frame this enquiry we can draw upon media
and communications research over the last two decades which have explored the
ways in which information technologies are appropriated and incorporated into
people’s day-to-day lives (e.g. Berker et al. 2006, Silverstone and Hirsch 1992).
This approach highlights an ongoing process of gaining possession and ownership,
objectification within the spatial and aesthetic environments of the home or
workplace and the eventual incorporation into the routines of daily life
(Silverstone et al. 1992). Using this framework we can question the role(s) of
others in the different stages of adults’ adoption of IT, i.e.: their initial acquisition
of computers; the development of ongoing forms of access to computers and their
ongoing use of computers. The present paper therefore goes on to address the
following research questions:

• Who are the ‘significant others’ whom adults from different generations draw
upon for support when engaging with IT?
• In what ways are different people from different generations being used to
support adults’ IT use and what is the nature of support being provided?
• How may forms of inter-generational support be related to actual (non)use of
IT?
• How may patterns and relationships between adults from different generations
be patterned according to salient demographic characteristics (such as
gender, age, socio-economic status, household composition, technological
access and experience)?

Research Methods

The present paper draws on data from a now completed two year research project
examining overall patterns of IT use by adults1. The project focused on four local
authorities in the west of England and South Wales, chosen in terms of
representativeness for population density, economic activity and levels of
educational attainment. The paper presents an analysis of data collected from in-
depth, semi-structured interviews with 100 respondents covered by an initial
household survey of 1001 adults aged 21 years and over. This sub-sample of 100
interviewees was selected to include equivalent numbers of individuals with
high/low levels of technology use and high/low educational background; with
additional criteria of selection including age, socio-economic status, geography
(urban/rural) and ethnicity. As we specifically wished to elicit the voices of
individual adults the interviews were conducted without the presence of other
family members. Interviews lasted between forty minutes and one-and-a-half
hours and focused on individual’s technological histories and present
technological activities as well as their domestic, educational and employment
‘careers’. In this sense, the interviews approached a life history or life story
method in that they were focused on eliciting individual’s experiences through a
chronological autobiography of home and family, education, work and technology

5
use (see Dhunpath 2000). From this basis the paper now goes on to consider the
interview data in terms of the three broad stages of acquisition, access and using
(and learning to use) computers.

Research Findings

1 - The role of others in adults’ acquisition of computers

Others were most commonly featured within our interviewees’ accounts of the
early stages of their acquisition of computers. Initial encounters with computers
often involved others, either as direct ‘introducers’ to the technology or as
providers of informal ‘frames of reference’ soon after initial contact. Direct
introduction through others often took place within formal settings such as work
or school, where IT use was a required rather than a chosen activity. Within this
process of formal introduction (which often first involved others in formal roles
such as school teacher or work technician), friends and family were cited
frequently as providing ‘follow-up’ frames of reference – helping individuals to
actually make sense of computers through informal combinations of family and
self-help:

How did you learn to use the computer at work?

I read the book … the manual that came with it to start with and then I
bought a couple of computer books and picked it up from that. My lad
showed me a lot because he was at home with me then.
[Male, 63 years, partly skilled2]

Aside from the workplace or place of study, coerced introductions to IT also took
place informally via family members and friends who were keen to ‘induct’
individuals into computer use. More so than at work, these informal introductions
were often of an intergenerational nature. Instances of such informal coercion
were particularly evident between grown children and their ageing parents. As
this man, whose daughters both worked with IT, explained:

It’s [my daughter] actually, who keeps saying to me, ‘Dad, you know,
here’s my computer, use it, otherwise you’ll lose it’. And my eldest
daughter … she also encourages me, because when I go over to their
offices, she’ll say, ‘sit down at the computer, Dad, have a go – do this
letter for me’ [Male, 69 years, partly skilled]

Similar forms of technological ‘evangelism’ were sometimes experienced by

respondents with computer-using friends of a similar age; with varying degrees of
success. As this non-computer user reported: “I go to friends’ homes and they
say, ‘come and look at this’ and they fiddle about a bit and it seems to take ages
to get onto it and then they press the wrong key or something and it’s not
engaged” [Male, 72 years, service].

The last example notwithstanding, these initial introductions were reported as

eventually guiding many of our interviewees into sustained engagement with IT.
Although the initial decision to acquire a computer often tied in with personal
lifestyle or life stage transitions such as changes in jobs or retirement (Anderson
and Tracey 2001), others played a prominent part in the subsequent decision and
acquisition processes. This was most obvious for those individuals in dependent
financial arrangements with others. For example, some of our younger
interviewees reported computers first being bought for them by parents. As one
respondent explained, his present interest in IT stemmed from his childhood use
of a computer purchased by his father:

6
 When I was young my dad bought us a ZX Spectrum, one of the early 16k
ones, I guess ‘cause he wanted us to find out about computers and keep
up to date himself … and I just learnt how to program from there … and
now I just don’t want to let knowledge go to waste.
[Male, 33 years, partly skilled]

Correspondingly, our interviews with parents of younger children reflected an

“intense social pressure on parents to buy a computer” (Lally 2002). This was
experienced, if not acted upon, by male and female respondents of all socio-
economic groups. As this father of a three year old daughter argued, “it will be a
necessity, eventually. She’s got to be just a bit older yet … Mainly it’s finance …
but eventually, we’re going to have to, for madam … We just haven’t got the
money” [Male, 43 years, skilled manual]. Many of our interviews with parents
repeated the specific discourse of investing in children’s education. Providing
access to a computer in the home was therefore approached by some
interviewees and their families as a contemporary means of cultural capital
(Sefton-Green and Buckingham 1998) - a notion raised by respondents of different
ages and socio-economic backgrounds:

I just felt it was something you should have. My mother died and left me
some money and I thought what better way to use it than set [my
daughters and grandchildren] up with a computer each.
[Female, 62 years, service]

[My boyfriend’s] mum bought [a second hand PC] for us the Christmas
before my daughter was born. So, it was mainly for when she gets bigger
and we can then sort of teach her how to use it. I’m sure by the time she’s
old enough to go out to work that’s all there’s going to be [Female, 23
years, unskilled/other]

Our interviews with older adults and their grown children revealed a notable
reversal of this generational dynamic, with sons and daughters providing their
older parents with computers. Inter-generational ‘passing-on’ of computers was
often reported by older respondents involving the acquisition (rather than
purchase) of computers from children; sometimes appearing to be an unsolicited
‘dumping’ of second-hand equipment. As this respondent recalls:

My stepson arrived for my birthday in August and he said, ‘I’ve brought

you a present’ and he put it on the floor there and it was his old computer,
fully set up. Well, he plugged it in and set it up, put it on the internet,
everything was done for me. And I would have never gone into that, if I
hadn’t been pushed by [him]. He just pushed me willy-nilly into the whole
internet fiasco. [Male, 61 years, service]

This inter-generational ‘disposal’ (see Hetherington 2003) was not always an

empowering or even useful experience for older adults. As a non computer-using
recipient of such a donation reflected, “it was plonked on me really” [Female, 57
years, skilled non-manual]. Another remarked, “I still have no interest in
computers really” [Male, 72 years, service].

These forms of mutual aid and unpaid exchange were not confined specifically to
older respondents on lower incomes, with many of our more affluent respondents
also acquiring and using computers from others via non-market means. That said
there were noticeable differences in the nature and power dynamics of these
exchanges, as this wife of a recently retired business executive describes:

7
 My nephew, Timothy, is in the business. He sets up these systems all over
the world. So when Timothy set his father up [with a better computer] my
husband had already said ‘look, can have we have the next one in line
when Timothy’s sorted you out’. So that’s how we got one. I think most
people like us get them like that. Our friends who have [computers], none
of them have bought them; they’ve retired and it’s been part of the
retirement package [because] the incoming chappie wants the latest all-
singing, all-dancing affair. [Female, 65 years, service]

In this manner, the acquisition of computers through others was often an

inherently shared activity; with all but a few interviewees reporting acquiring a
computer with the involvement of others at some stage of the acquisition process.
The intergenerational nature of this support was dependent on the stage of
adulthood. For some interviewees, more often than not women, partners or
spouses were reported as bringing computers into the household. Yet other
respondents who were lacking immediate ‘IT rich’ sources of support within their
family networks were driven sometimes towards alternative means of gaining
necessary social support. In a few cases local ‘IT users’ were sought to act as
guides through the acquisition process. These tended to be neighbours or other
local individuals known in the community to be ‘professional’ IT users. Such
surrogate assistance could also be obtained by purchasing a computer from local
individuals or businesses with the intention of then utilising the vendor’s
knowledge and expertise once the purchase had taken place. One widow had, for
example, purchased deliberately a computer from a small, local independent shop
because “I knew that he would be able to help me buy one and that I could go
back to him when I was getting used to it” [female, 57 years, partly skilled]. An
office worker from a rural market town had similarly chosen to use her next-door
neighbour who operated an unofficial business “… specialis[ing] in finding
computer systems for people’s needs, so he actually comes out… He does quite a
few – come into your home and sort things out for you and if you’ve got a
problem, ring up”. This neighbour had proved invaluable in then “giv[ing] me a
couple of basic lessons .. the basics of turning it on. How to get into the programs
and basic examples … and then it was just find out for myself, playing with it”
[female, 29 years, skilled non-manual].

In highlighting the range of social contacts used by our respondents it is

important to note that even the most plentiful sources of support from others did
not necessarily lead to successful IT acquisition. Instead, successful acquisition
remained contingent upon the individual’s own valuing of IT and intrinsic
motivation to acquire a computer. This is illustrated by this young mother who
confessed to ‘hating’ using computers at school. Most people she knew who
owned a computer used them for entertainment (‘either DVDs or games’). From
this perspective the computer was an almost useless addition to the household,
despite the opportunities provided to her through her extended family and the
informal economy of her housing estate:

We had a computer, my uncle brought me a computer but I gave it away

and people say ‘well you should have kept it for the boys’ but they got a
PlayStation upstairs so they don’t need one.
Did you ever get it out of the box?
No I just looked at it and then gave it away, my uncle thinks it is up in the
attic but its not.
Why did he give it to you? Was it one that he was throwing away?
No, I must have been drunk and he works for a computer place and he said
‘do you want me to pick you one up for you and the boys?’. And I was like
‘yeah alright’ and then he brings this big bloody box in and on the back of
the box it showed you what leads go into where and I thought that ‘it just

8
 has to go’. The booklet was about ‘that’ thick and I just thought ‘it has to
go’.
Was your uncle really keen on you having one?
Yeah, he always says ‘how you doing on your computer?’ and I say ‘I’m just
reading the book’. God knows what I’m going to say in a year’s time.
Has he only just got it for you?
Yes a couple of months back. I will just say the kids dropped it on the floor
or something, just blame it on them.
[Female, 21-40 years age group, partly skilled]

2 - The role of others in facilitating adults’ access to computers

If the role of significant others was, in most cases, one of enabling the acquisition
of computers, this influence became more ambiguous in relation to the ensuing
integration of computers in adults’ everyday lives. This was particularly evident in
terms of how others facilitated adults’ access to computers. Whereas some
significant others continued to encourage and provide ready access, more often
than not, others played a more double-edged role; especially if they were also
users of the computers in question. For example, once a computer was purchased
within households with younger children a range of bargaining and ‘co-operative
conflict’ often then took place between adults and children (Pugh 1997). Our
interview data suggest that the place of parents within these negotiated
‘hierarchies of use’ (Holloway & Valentine 2003) differed according to existing
household structures and dynamics as well as adults’ interest in, and need to use,
the computer themselves. Some households employed highly structured but
democratic means to allot ‘computer time’ to different household members; “we
sit and discuss at tea-time and we look at needs” [female, 50 years, service].
However, the negotiation of use in many households was often less explicit, with
IT being subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) coded at a symbolic level as
‘belonging to’ specific members of the household. In this way others often
curtailed adults’ practical access to computers. For example, in some households
children had immediately become the predominant users of the ‘home’ computer,
either “hogging the computer all the time” (female, 42 years, service) or in the
case of this mother, assuming physical as well as symbolic ownership:

I use [the computer] very rarely now. I suppose because it’s – it’s an
excuse, I guess – it’s in [my daughter’s] bedroom … Because it’s in her
bedroom, I tend not to use it so much. And when she first had it, she
wouldn’t use it all the time. She’d go on it occasionally and I would pop on
it now and then. When she comes home from school she always seems to
be up there or back and forth. And it’s in her room, so I tend not to use it
so much.
[Female, 46 years, skilled non-manual]

This inhibition of access was also apparent within the all-adult relationships
highlighted in the earlier data. The restrictive influence of ‘dominant’ adult users
in the household is illustrated by the case of a part-time translator and housewife.
As this interviewee initially recounted: “my husband always says, ‘you’ve got all
day, why don’t you go on the Internet?’”. Yet this interviewee’s failure to have
ever used the computer was not as straight-forward as ‘evading’ her ostensibly
clear opportunities to use the family computer. As she went on to explain, her
ability to take advantage of this offer was limited by her husband and sons: “they
always fight over it, you know. So if I come along I feel I’m intruding” [female, 35
years, skilled non-manual]. Another female interviewee explained that although
“computers have always been around me” she was unable to use the home

9
computer until her husband dealt with a long-standing technical problem: “When
Steve gets this [computer] sorted maybe I will” [female, 52 years, skilled non-
manual]. Aside from being gendered this mediation was often age-related; as can
be seen in the case of this older adult who had initially made some use of a
donated computer system until his daughter had started to ‘borrow’ elements of it
back; “I used to use my daughter’s actually, and do it on that. The only thing is,
she’s nicked the printer from it! … One of these days she’ll come over and pick
her laptop back!” [male, 69 years, partly skilled].

3 - The role of others in supporting and sustaining adults’ use of computers

Having acquired a computer and negotiated some form of access, the actual
process of using IT tended to be social for many of our interviewees. For most
interviewees significant others were only contacted and drawn upon when help or
advice was needed. These forms of user support were again more often to be
found within family networks rather than with friends, neighbours or work
colleagues. This tendency to rely on family members was consistent across socio-
economic groups and gender:

I suppose it’s all quite logical using the computer, isn’t it, really? And I
think if I get stuck Susanna [daughter] comes, she’ll be home, you know,
after school… And I’ll ring up Will or Fiona, you know, the other two – and
they can sort of say and see what’s going on … I’ve got a network of family
that I can actually use.
[Female, 54 years, service]

I just pick up the phone and ring [my son] up. He tells me what to do …
He’s got two or three of his mates that are into computers. They sit down
and chat and go over the pub and they’re sitting down and talking
computers. And he gets all the information. He keeps up with it, you know.
There was a virus the other week and he just phoned me up and said,
‘Delete it quick, there’s a virus going round’. So I did, you know.
So is it just your son then, or is there anyone else…
Nobody round here is really into computers, I don’t think. Not that I know
of … the bloke next door, he’s got a computer … but I never bother them, I
just ring my son up, any problems.
[Male, 63 years, skilled non-manual]

In terms of using a computer we found very few instances of sustained

‘communities of practice’ outside of the close family or workplace. When people
did use computers regularly with others for non-work or study purposes this
tended to involve younger males for whom using IT was a major leisure interest.
Here IT-related social contact and support was sometimes sustained in online as
well as face-to-face forms. One respondent used computers for leisure purposes
on an almost daily basis with two work-colleagues who he described as “really
know[ing] what they’re doing”. As well as relying on each other as expert sources
of advice these men also regularly played online games after work. Our
respondent described it as an easy “way of playing with my mates after work, as
well as working with them during the day” [male, 33 years, partly skilled].

Although not widespread, we also found some older (and often female)
interviewees to rely completely on others of a similar age and life-stage to use
computers. Stewart (2002) has observed how the social division of labour means
that some people do not need to fully ‘adopt’ computers but can, nevertheless,
experience many of the benefits of computers through others. These sources of
‘computer use-by-proxy’ therefore precluded the need for individuals to directly

10
engage with a computer themselves. As one woman reasoned: “If I want
something that could be on the internet then I’ll ask someone who has one. If not
then I won’t bother” [female, 54 years, skilled non-manual]. Perhaps the most
striking example of this use by proxy was a female interviewee who when working
as a typist had never used a computer for anything but word-processing. Now,
having retired, her husband operated the computer and left her only to type (as
she described it, her husband “does the click-click” – i.e. operated the computer
mouse) – a model of engagement mirroring her earlier use of computers in the
workplace:

“Well, I type. Once my husband can open it up … [At work] it wasn’t my

position to sit at the thing and know its inner workings. There were very
clever officers there whose job it was to do that … [At home] I say to
Dennis, look – actually it’s down to him really because he does the click-
click. … If I want anything else I shout to Dennis and he can do it. We’re a
partnership … There is no point in my spending the time learning how to
do it, because I’m very well up-together traditionally – I can achieve the
same ends just as quickly and just as thoroughly …
Have you used the internet?
We’ve done that ... Well, I haven’t done it, you know, because if I want
anything I ask Dennis to go and do it [Female, 65 years, service].

Across the sample, others were most prominent in terms of supporting computer
use in terms of how individuals’ learned to use computers. As with the acquisition
process, the importance of informal social contact was prevalent. This was the
case even when individuals had taken formal computer courses which, more often
than not, was followed up and reinforced on an informal basis. For married
couples the partner or spouse was sometimes cited as a source of support and
learning. Although women tended to be more likely to rely on partners for support
this was not always the case, as this man explained with regard to learning to use
the Microsoft Word package: “My wife uses word processing, that’s her job. She’s
a legal secretary. So my wife, she taught me the word processing part of it” [Male,
35 years, unskilled/other]. However, it is important to note that this family-
supported informal learning was not necessarily empowering for the individuals
concerned. As this woman recounted:

My son came in with the computer and said why don’t you take this up
mother … but he’s no good as a teacher, no patience …. oh my god he’s
terrible at teaching, he loses his temper because he doesn’t realise that all
these things are new to me. I just don’t know anything about it at all.
[Female, 57 years, skilled non-manual]

As before, there was a noticeable absence of non-family members in these

accounts of informal learning. Although, as we have seen, neighbours and
acquaintances were occasionally used as conduits for purchasing computers and
gaining an initial orientation, there were few examples of computer-using
networks of non-family members being developed and sustained beyond the
initial orientation period. An example, atypical of our interview sample, of this
extended building of ‘technological capital’ can be seen with this woman who was
an extensive computer user and had developed rich networks of expertise which
she could call upon when needed:

[I’ve learnt] through other people who were interested. So when I got
involved in the internet [at work], I learnt from other people who were
good at the internet, and I would say, ‘how does that work?’ and they go,
‘well you do this and you do that…’ and they would explain that bit. Then
I’d match that with knowledge I already had and then build on that. Then

11
 someone would ask me, so I’d pass that information. And I think the whole
thing becomes … if you share knowledge, you learn knowledge
So who are these people?
[…] there are people who I know through my previous job where I had a
hardware engineer, and if I wanted now to set up a web server, I would
email Steve, because I know Steve would be good at that and he’d give me
the right information. And if it was something that I hadn’t done before, I’d
probably look on-line; I do research on-line … I would use newsgroups.
[Female, 38 years, service]

As this interviewee intimates, the workplace acted as a prominent site of learning

from others; although again in more informal rather than formal ways. For most
workers this work-based learning had been experienced not through formal
training but through an ‘informal apprenticeship’ from peers. As this retired man
explained, picking up computer skills ‘as you went along’ was a key source of
learning; “you just picked it up through the bloke who was there that was [next to]
you, you know. He just told you what to do” [Male, 63 years, skilled manual]. This
process of ‘sitting-with-Nellie’ (Overwein 2000) was raised by many interviewees,
from those in professional and managerial jobs as well as those employed in
manual professions – as this university lecturer explained:

So how have you learnt to use IT then?

You sit at a computer, in a shared office, and ask ‘how does this work?’ –
and somebody else would show me how it works. It’s wrong to do it that
way, it’s wrong to only learn when you’ve got a problem. In theory, you
should go on a training course to learn how to do it all. But in practice, I
haven’t.
[Female, 50 years, service]

Discussion

In recounting the importance of significant others in many adults’ acquisition and

adoption of computers, our data also highlight the structuation and inequitable
nature of much of this contact. Although a range of different social contacts were
mentioned throughout our interview data, the ‘traditional’ nature of who was
involved in most adults’ use of computers was striking. Most others were drawn
predominantly from individuals’ existing social networks – especially close
relatives or, to a lesser extent, the extended family. Although others were often
used as important sources of information (especially in the initial stages of
acquisition) they played vital roles in enabling and, in some cases, regulating
individuals’ IT access. Many interviewees had benefited, for example, from the
lending or borrowing of computer resources from others. On the other hand, the
ongoing use of this hardware was then often subject to negotiated collaboration
(or conflict) with the same others; with the outcome that IT was fitted around the
existing dynamics and patterns of everyday life.

Although not consistent, our data do point to the persistence of intergenerational

relationships in many adults’ engagement with IT. Most of these intergenerational
relationships were familial rather than extra-familial in nature. Above all, it was
clear from our data that the geographies of intergenerational IT support were not
homogenous, but varied between social groups and contexts - often shaped by
the stage an individual was positioned in within the life course and their life
circumstances. If generational segregation was apparent as a problem then this
appeared to occur during the actual sustained engagement with IT - rather than
the initial acquisition process (as implied in the ‘plonking’ comment from one of
our older interviewees). However, it would be unwise to portray these patterns as
somehow constituting ‘new’ forms of behaviour - with much of our data following
familiar patterns of relationship between aged parents and adult children (Mancini

12
and Blieszner 1989). That said, in this respect the ‘handing down’ of computers
from younger to older generations could be seen as a reverse sharing of culture
between grandparents, parents and children (Wiscott and Kopera-Frye 2000),
with technology traditions, beliefs, and customs being ‘passed up’ the family
hierarchies.

As such our data suggest that adults’ use of computers to be rooted in the
patterns of everyday life as most other social activities. Whilst this observation
may not seem to be especially note-worthy, the ‘ordinariness’ of adults’ (non)use
of IT is often overlooked by social scientists. Despite the predominant discourses
of the information society as a new epoch or somehow ‘different way of living’,
adults’ (non)use of computers clearly continues to be shaped by the nuances and
social formations of day-to-day social life. As such one of the key lessons to be
learned from our data is how digital inequalities are mediated and supported
through the existing inequitable social structures and institutions of the family,
household, workplace and community. In this sense, the influence of significant
others is apparent in the ‘digital divide’ far beyond crude terms of either ‘having’
or ‘not having’ access to a computer, or being a ‘user’ or a ‘non-user’, but in the
subtleties and nuances of the nature and forms of adults’ engagement with IT. In
this way, individuals’ engagement with IT looks set to be inevitably structured
along the ‘abiding social fault lines’ of age, stage, gender and socio-economic
status as long as society in general is structured along these lines (Golding 2000).

Within this ‘ordinariness’, the reliance of most adults on close (and sometimes
extended) family contacts between and across generations as opposed to the
more formal sources of support in the workplace or community should not be seen
as that surprising. As has been observed before, people are more likely to interact
with others and seek advice from those they are close to; “people who know and
trust each other are more likely to share personal information. If they have a
background of shared experience, they can more easily convey that information,
and responses are more likely to be interpreted as supportive” (Resnick 2002,
p.254). With the computer, perhaps more so than any other consumer good,
conforming to what is seen to be the societal norm of using IT can be a deeply
personal (and potentially embarrassing) process - better shared with family
members rather than friends or work colleagues. In many cases, a reliance on the
family as the key context of becoming a computer user was clearly enabling for
the adult concerned. For example, we found many enabling cases of self-help and
informal support between family members (Williams and Windebank 2000). Thus
many of our interviewees, of all ages and socio-economic backgrounds, had
benefited from an on-going process of the recycling and informal redistribution of
computers from the workplace to the family and from family member to family
member. Given the rapid ‘hi-tech’ obsolescence of computers, older adults were
often at the end of such recycling chains, with knowledgeable younger family
members ‘setting them up’ and ‘sorting them out’.

As such computer use was an area of social life where different members of the
family were able to offer support and assistance; as was evident in the
involvement of grown sons and daughters in older adults’ computer use. Whereas
adult children’s involvement with older parents’ ‘activities of daily life’ (such as
shopping, dressing or eating) tend to be restricted to individual children (Laditka
and Laditka 2001, Lin et al. 2003), the computer appears to be a less committal
area of assistance which more family members can be involved in with less of a
sustained emotional obligation. There was sometimes a sense that assisting
parents with IT use in this way conformed to the Durheimian norms of moral
obligation often prevalent when people help their parents (Komter and Vollebergh
2002). This notion of supporting others’ IT use as a ‘should’ rather than a ‘want’
(Janoff-Bulman and Leggatt 2002) could be seen as a reflection of the cultural
notion referred to at the beginning of the paper of IT use as a practical necessity
of survival in contemporary society. On other occasions there were hints that such

13
acts of support from others were not necessarily altruistic but, instead, attempts
to confirm the validity of one’s own computer use (for example, the attempts to
‘force’ computers onto family or friends). Both sets of motivations can be seen to
partially explain the short-term obligation of many adult sons and daughters in
their parents’ IT use; their involvement often stopping after the initial acquisition
of the computer and basic orientation period.

Whilst pointing out the all-too apparent continuities between the inequalities of
people’s (non)engagement with IT and the inherent inequalities in their general
day-to-day lives, of ultimate concern from a social science perspective is the likely
self-perpetuating nature of these inequalities. There is a danger, as Resnick (2002,
p.248) reasons, that inequalities associated with the role of others in an adult’s
use of IT “like many other aspects of social life, is not only produced but
reproduced”. As we have discussed, the inequalities which tend to occur
throughout the domestication of the computer into the individual’s everyday life
were often contingent on the pre-existing imbalance of the relationships involved;
e.g. between children and parents or between male partners and female partners.
The likely persistence and perpetual nature of these inequalities can therefore be
seen as following the logic of social capital in general (Lichter et al. 2002). For
example, the ‘homophily principle’ – that similarity breeds connection – was in
evidence in the IT-related connections within our data and reflects the wider
finding that people’s personal networks tend to be homogenous with regard to
many socio-demographic, behavioural and intrapersonal characteristics such as
gender, social status, educational background and values. Although similarity may
well be a preferable criterion of who supports you to use a computer due to issues
of familiarity and comfort, only relying on similar others for IT support is likely to
“limit people’s social worlds in a way that has powerful implications for the
information they receive, the attitudes they form and the interactions they
experience” (McPherson et al. 2001, p.415). That said, there were brief signs,
worthy of further investigation, of how IT was being used to disrupt or subvert pre-
existing inequalities. For example some interviewees’ use of others as substitute
users of IT - what we termed as ‘use-by-proxy’ - could be seen as an empowering
use of others. As Gray (1992) describes with regard to the video recorder, women
can sometimes use or exaggerate their technical inability to make male partners
contribute to domestic duties – making such apparently submissive behaviour a
‘tactic of resistance’ within the household. Thus to portray ITs merely as a site of
disempowerment for older adults is to ignore the subtleties of the interactions
behind their (non)use.

Conclusion

Significant others are undoubtedly integral components of how adults adopt and
engage with ITs such as the computer - both between and within generations.
Within adults’ tendency to rely on family members, a range of empowering and
disempowering effects can be highlighted; often replicating but occasionally
subverting the pre-existing power dynamics of familial and household
relationships. The ambiguous nature of others’ involvement was especially
noticeable in then (non)engagement with ITs by older adults, women and/or those
from lower socio-economic backgrounds – social groups traditionally associated
with lower levels of use of IT within the digital divide discourse. In highlighting the
importance of life-stage it is unlikely that these patterns will alter as more
technology-savvy generations age (as some commentators are wont to suggest).
Indeed, older adults’ non-use of ICT is not simply about advanced age and lack of
technological know-how per se. Instead it hinges more around the circumstances
often associated with particular life-stages and ages – e.g. lower income, impaired
physicality, narrowing social circles as well as the politics, cultures and personal
preferences of different age-groups (Jæger 2005). In this sense it is foolhardy for
younger generations to assume that they themselves may not face a similar

14
predicament in their older years, with old age looking set to be a more enduringly
divisive factor than some current commentators would like to believe. Thus whilst
people’s preference for seeking and receiving help from family members will
undoubtedly continue, how informal support networks can be supported outside
of kinship networks requires further consideration. Until then, significant others
look set to continue in assisting but often restricting adults’ IT use and thereby
contributing to the subtle continuities of ‘digital divided’ societies.

Footnotes

[1] This paper is based upon a project funded by the Economic and Social
Research Council [R000239518]. The author would like to thank Stephen Gorard
and John Furlong as well as the individuals who took part in the in-depth
interviews.

[2] Interviewees are described using data derived from the initial household
survey. The socio-economic identifiers are based upon the Registrar General
occupational status categories used in the UK (for ease of use these have been
collapsed into the five categories of: ‘service’, ‘skilled non-manual’, ‘skilled
manual’, ‘partly skilled’, ‘unskilled/other’).

References

Anderson, B., McWilliam, A., Lacohee, H., Clucas, E. and Gershuny, J. (1999) ‘Family
life in the digital home: domestic telecommunications at the end of the 20 th century’
BT Technology Journal, 17, 1, pp.85-97
Bakardjieva, M. (2001) ‘Becoming a domestic internet user’ Proceedings of the 3rd
International Conference on Uses and Services in Telecommunications, Paris, France
Telecom, June 12-14, pp.28-39.
Bakardjieva, M. (2005) ‘Internet society: the internet in everyday life’ London, Sage
Berker, T., Hartmann, M., Punie, Y. and Ward, K. (2006) ‘Domestication of media and
technology’ London, Sage
Caron, A. and Caronia, L. (2001) ‘Active users and active objects: the mutual
construction of families and communication technologies’ Convergence, 7, 3, pp.38-61
Coleman, J. (1988) ‘Social capital in the creation of human capital’ American Journal of
Sociology, 94 (supplement), pp. S95-S120
Dhunpath, R. (2000) ‘Life history methodology: "narradigm" regained’ International
Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 13, 5, pp. 543-551.
DiMaggio, P. and E. Hargittai (2001) ‘From the digital divide to digital inequality’
Working Paper - Centre for Arts, Cultural and Political Studies, Princeton University
Facer, K., Furlong, J., Furlong, R and Sutherland, R. (2003) ‘Screenplay’ London, Routledge
Fountain, J. (1997) ‘Social capital: a key enabler of innovation in science and technology’
in Branscomb, L. and J. Keller (Eds) ‘Investing in innovation: toward a consensus
strategy for federal technology policy’ Cambridge: MIT Press
Giacquita, J., Bauer, J. and Levin, J. (1993) ‘Beyond technology’s promise: an examination
of children’s educational computing at home’ Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Golding, P. (2000) ‘Forthcoming Features: Information and Communications Technologies
and the Sociology of the Future’ Sociology, 34, 1, pp.165-184
Gray, A. (1992) ‘Video playtime: the gendering of a leisure technology’ London,
Routledge
Healy, J. (1998) ‘Failure to connect’ New York, Touchstone Press
Hetherington, K. (2003) ‘Secondhandedness: consumption, disposal, and absent
presence’ Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2004, , 22, 1, pp. 157 – 173
Holloway, S. and Valentine, G. (2003) ‘Cyberkids: Children in the Information Age’ London,
RoutledgeFalmer

15
Jæger, B. (2005) ‘Young Technologies in Old Hands: An International View on Senior
Citizens’ Utilization of ICT’ Copenhagen: Djøf Publishing
Janoff-Bulman R. and Leggatt H. (2002) ‘Culture and social obligation: when “shoulds” are
perceived as “wants”’ Journal of Research in Personality 36, 3, pp. 260-270
Kavanaugh, A. and Patterson, S. (2002) ‘The impact of community computer networks on
social capital and community involvement in Blacksburg’ in Wellman, B. and
Haythornwaite, C. (eds) ‘The internet in everyday life’ London, Blackwell, pp.325-344
Kitchin, R. (1998) Cyberspace: the world in the wires. Chichester: John Wiley
Komter A. and Vollebergh W. (2002) ‘Solidarity in Dutch families - family ties under strain?’
Journal of Family Issues 23, 2, pp. 171-188
Laditka, J., and Laditka, S. (2001) ‘Adult children helping older parents - variations in
likelihood and hours by gender, race, and family role’ Research on Aging 23, 4, pp.
429-456
Lally, E. (2002) ‘At home with computers’ Oxford, Berg
Lichter, D., Shanahan, M. and Gardner, E. (2002) ‘Helping others? The effects of childhood
poverty and family instability on prosocial behaviour’ Youth & Society 34, 1, pp. 89-119
Lin, I., Goldman, N., Weinstein, M., Lin, Y., Gorrindo, T. and Seeman T. (2003) ‘Gender
differences in adult children's support of their parents in Taiwan’ Journal of Marriage
and the Family 65, 1, pp. 184-200
Mancini, J. and Blieszner, R. (1989) ‘Aging Parents and Adult Children: Research Themes in
Intergenerational Relations’ Journal of Marriage and the Family, 51, 2, pp. 275-290
McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L. and Cook, J. (2001) ‘Birds of a feather: homophily in social
networks’ Annual Review of Sociology, 27, pp.415-44
Murdock, G., P. Hartmann and P. Gray (1996) ‘Conceptualising home computing:
resources and practices’ in Heap, N., R. Thomas, G. Einon, R. Mason and H.
Mackay (Eds) ‘Information technology and society’ pp.269-283 London: Sage
Owerwien, B. (2000) ‘Informal learning and the role of social movements’ International
Review of Education, 46, 6, pp.621-640
Pugh, C. (1997) ‘The household, household economics and housing’ Housing Studies,
12, 3, pp.383-392
Putnam, R. (1993) ‘Making democracy work: civic traditions in modern Italy’ Princeton NJ,
Princeton University Press
Quan-Haase, A., Wellman, B., Witte, J. and Hampton, K. (2002) ‘Capitalising on the net:
social contact, civic engagement and sense of community’ in Wellman, B. and
Haythornwaite, C. (eds) ‘The internet in everyday life’ London, Blackwell pp.291-323
Resnick, P. (2002) ‘Beyond bowling together: sociotechnical capital’ in Carroll, J. (ed) ‘HCI
in the new millennium’ Boston MA, Addison-Wesley, pp.247-272.
Sefton-Green, J., and Buckingham, D. (1998 'Digital visions: children's 'creative' uses of
new technologies' in J. Sefton-Green (Ed.) 'Digital diversions' London: UCL Press
Seiter, E. (2003) ‘Television and the internet’ in Turow, J. and Kavanaugh, A. (eds) ‘The
wired homestead: an MIT sourcebook on the internet and the family’ Cambridge MA,
MIT Press
Selwyn, N. (2006) ‘Digital division or digital decision? A study of non-users and low-users
of computers’ Poetics, 34, 4-5, pp. 273-292
Selwyn, N. and Facer, K. (2007) ‘Beyond the digital divide: Rethinking digital inclusion for
the twenty-first century’ Bristol, Futurelab
Selwyn, N., Gorard, S. and Furlong, J. (2005) ‘Adult learning in the digital age’ London,
Routledge
Silverstone, R. and Hirsch, E. (1992) 'Consuming technologies: media and information in
domestic spaces' Routledge, London
Silverstone, R., Hirsch, E. and Morley, D. (1992) 'Information and communication
technologies and the moral economy of the household' in Silverstone, R. and Hirsch, E
(eds.) 'Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces'
Routledge, London
Stewart, J. (2002) ‘Encounters with the information society’ unpublished PhD thesis,
Edinburgh: Research Centre for Social Sciences, University of Edinburgh.
van Dijk, J. (2006) ‘Digital divide research, achievements and shortcomings’ Poetics, 34, 4-
5, pp.221-235
Wellman, B. (2001) ‘Computer networks as social networks’ Science, vol. 293, September
14th, pp.2031-2034
Wellman, B., Salaff, J., Dimitrova, D., Garton, L., Gulia, M., and Haythornthwaite, C. (1996)
‘Computer networks as social networks: collaborative work, tele-work, and virtual
community’ Annual Review of Sociology, 22, pp.213-239.
Williams, C. and Windebank, J. (2000) ‘Helping each other out?: community exchange
in deprived neighbourhoods’ Community Development Journal 35, pp.146-156

16
Wiscott, R. and Kopera-Frye, K. (2000) ‘Sharing of Culture: Adult Grandchildren's
Perceptions of Intergenerational Relations’ The International Journal of Aging and
Human Development 51, 3, pp.199 - 215
Wyatt, S., Henwood, F., Hart, A. and Smith, J. (2003) ‘De digitale tweedeling: internet,
gezondheidsinformatie en het dagelijks leven (the digital divide: the internet, health
information and everyday life)’ Amsterdams Sociologisch Tijdschrift 30, 1&2, pp.254-
273

17