I am happy to report that recent surveys indicate that folks 50-plus are really starting to use digital products. That is great news for people like me who use technology all the time and want the company of my contemporaries. There is probably much more to learn from you than the 20-year-olds who stare at me in horror when I ask questions. As more and more of my friends start using smartphones and tablets, I hope we will have much more to talk about other than new restaurant openings, the sales at Bloomingdale’s, and the last time they took a poop.

I am not kidding! There is a whole world out there that I want to share with others my age. It is now easily accessible through this new thing called apps (applications). Yes, we can get a lot of information over the Internet from our home computers, but the world is once again changing. Seniors have to be a part of it. Most of the information we are going to want to quickly access in the future will be through apps on your mobile devices. That means you will be using your smartphones and tablets much more. You may not understand this now but wait and see. A year from now you will be making doctor appointments, reading a novel, ordering food, and buying products through dedicated apps.

Be ready, be prepared. Learn how to use and navigate apps. Call me or email me if you are having technical difficulties. I can help you and if I don’t know how, I can get others. Don’t be left behind.

According to Pew Research Center, seniors are on their way. Pew Research just revealed that half of all adult Americans now own either a tablet computer or a smartphone, and one-third use their mobile devices to view news stories and video clips at least once a week. Pew polled more than 9,500 adults from late June to early August to get this information.

About 20 percent of the mobile news users surveyed said they paid for an online subscription in the last year. That doesn’t mean they are cutting back on viewing news on PCs or in newspapers. About half of the tablet news users say their tablets spur them to spend more time consuming news, and about one-third say they get news from new sources they didn’t use before. Nearly one-third of the mobile users also have print-only subscriptions, and most have no plans to give them up.

Another interesting fact is that devices based on Google Inc.’s Android platform are gaining momentum. Over half of tablet owners reported owning Apple’s iPad, compared with 81 percent a year ago. Forty-eight percent now own an Android-based device, including Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle Fire.

To be honest, I thought it was going to take a lot longer for seniors to adopt to all of the available technology. I was starting to lose faith until I read the Pew report. I look forward to the day when I get a call from one of my friends who tells me about a new app that I knew nothing about, but could use. That is the type of bonding I want.
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