Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Technology is integrated everywhere into our lives these days. And you know, getting your kind of your digital house in order is so important, especially when it comes to your data privacy and all of those things. And joining me to talk more about that is Tom Camber. He is executive director of Older Adults Technology Services or OATS from aarp. Tom, thanks so much for taking some time for me. Appreciate it.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Thanks for having me today.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: I know that you all have done some, some research there specifically regarding older Americans and kind of how they feel about technology. There seem to be a lot of concerns about digital privacy, kind of the digital footprint that people leave behind. What does your research really show there as you kind of get into the numbers?
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Well, the two big trends are, on the one hand, a lot of older folks are really using technology a lot. The device ownership has gone up, online subscriptions have gone up. People are, you know, more than 2/3 of older adults are using technology and getting a lot of benefit from it. But what we're finding is that people are not doing the, the kind of back end maintenance tasks that make sure that everybody's able to stay safe and protect themselves. And so we did a survey recently and found that 2/3 of people over 50 that responded have not saved any digital documents anywhere securely. And when we asked why, they said they just weren't quite sure how to do that and many of them just hadn't gotten around to it.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Yeah, and it's super important. I mean, you know, I feel like maybe the more time goes on, I feel like sort of anecdotally anyway, the digital divide gets narrower and narrower, but there still seems to be a pretty big gap there, according to this research, people not really knowing how to back up those documents and things. What are the kind of things that technology can help people with, you know, that older Americans might not be taking advantage of? I know you sort of alluded to a couple there.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Well, there's really a silver lining here with the technology because the thing it allows us to do for the most, I mean, to begin with, it allows us to do a much better job of storing our information and keeping it in an organized way. I know when I was a kid and was growing up in a household of older folks, we had a lot of documents stored in boxes in the attic and files in the basement. And when there's a flood or there's a problem or you need to get your hands on things quickly, it's really a nightmare. Well, the digital era gives us a chance to store things and put them securely in online folders. It allows us to keep those documents indefinitely and most importantly allows us to protect them with passwords and also grant access to other people in our family or even caregivers if we need medical support. And so there's just a lot more in the tool chest for us here these days. And frankly for people, when imagine for example, that you become ill, you need to share your health documents in terms of your insurance or your treatment treatments or medications.
If you set up the proper access for things like that, it really allows you to, to focus on getting better instead of worrying that people are not able to get the information they need.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: Yeah, it does just make things so, so much easier there. And so what can people do? I mean, older Americans especially, what are maybe some steps that they can take to make better use of technology but you know, and really to, you know, put their digital house in order, I guess.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: Well, we, we took it right to, as a, as a real, we took it to Harvard when people said they had a hard time getting started. And so we put together a website specifically devoted to this. It's a page, it's called the Digital House Cleaning Challenge. And we created the site, it's on seniorplanet.org digitalhousecleaning and what we put on that page is just a five day challenge. It's a five, five steps. They're design older adults and they don't require any special technology knowledge or skill and everything is free. Right. And so the first day when you go there, the first step is to look at your app permissions and that really asks you to take a look on your phone and see which apps you're using and consider how those apps are set. You can actually go to the settings and you can change who they're allowed to share information with to limit that so that you're not being tracked all the time. A second day focuses on password management and helping you sign up for password manager software if you want to use that. A third day focuses on your social media, which is really important for us these days. You've got who has access to your social settings and your posts. And then finally we focus for two days on digital documents, how to store them and how to use a digital vault, which is a new technology that allows people to have more security for those documents and to share them more intentionally.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great too that it, it really is kind of this proactive thing on AARP's part. And on this, you know, as you, if you take this challenge, you get those reminders every day to Take that next step. To take that next step. And I think that really should be helpful to a lot of folks as well.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. It's meant to be one of these things. You know, we all know that there's stuff we should be doing in our lives that we put off. Right. But if you do it with a friend or you get somebody to remind you, that often is all we need to get us started. And once you're doing it, it actually goes pretty well and pretty fast. And we' got a hotline set up for people, so. And we also have those reminders, as you mentioned, you can sign up for your email reminder every day to get you coming back to it. And it'll get you done in, you know, just a week of setting at it, of working with it a little bit. And it'll, it'll take a real load off your shoulders and know that you are, first of all, taking care of all your own information.
And also it means that you're not likely to be a burden to other people if something goes wrong and you haven't prepared all the information that really kind of needs to be there.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Yeah, just a lot of peace of mind for folks. And, you know, really just getting this done, I think is so, so important. And as you say, getting started is kind of the biggie here. You know, if you take that first step, you really go a long way toward getting your digital house in order.
And remind us once again of that website and maybe where people can go to find out more.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Yes, it's seniorplanet.org digitalhousecleaning. Digital house cleaning is all one word there. So just seniorplanet.org digitalhousecleaning. And when you go there, you'll see all the information right on the page. It's easy to access. And remember there is that hotline. You know, it's very helpful sometimes to just pick up the phone and call somebody if you have a question. So we've, we've set that up as well. And AARP supports all this, so it's really designed to be really appropriate for anybody over 50.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: All right, very good. Well, Tom Camber with AARP, he is the Director of Older Adults Technology Services, or oats there at aarp. Tom, thanks so much. Really do appreciate your time.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: Once again, thanks for having us today.
