Every year, the Older Adults Technology Services (OATS) report from AARP hits closer to home. It’s heartening to see some progress, but these is progress to be made for older folks and digital inclusion…

The 2023 results show some improvement from the ACS survey conducted in 2018, the basis for AARP’s 2020 Aging Connected report.
• The number of older adults who lack wireline broadband access at home has fallen from 22 million in 2018 (42 percent) to 19 million (32 percent) in 2023. The gap is closing, but it has not closed.
• Older adults have seen modest increases in ownership of large-screen computers (desktops and laptops), from 70 percent in 2018 to 73 percent in 2023, with
a slightly larger increase from 60 percent to 67 percent for those over age 75.
• Some states have done better work than others in reducing age-based disparity of wireline access, controlling for other factors. Generally speaking, low-in come older adults in southern states have the lowest wireline and cellular data adoption rates and constitute the population at greatest risk of being disconnected from vital digital services.
• Cellular connectivity, including high-speed 5G services, increased by 17 percent among older adults between 2018 and 2023, providing coverage to 7 million additional older adults.
• Some states that are lagging in wireline broadband access show some of the highest rates of cellular data plan enrollment by seniors, reflecting efforts to close the connectivity gap by whatever means are readily available.
• Policies enacted since 2021, including the American Rescue Plan Act (March 2021) and the Infrastructure Investment and Job Act (November 2021) targeted funds to increasing connectivity nationwide, but inconsistent implementation has yielded patchwork results.

It looks like rural residents have a harder time…

Geography matters: the rural/urban divide. Seventy-nine percent of people in metro areas (calculated based on population, not land area) subscribe to broad band wireline service at home compared with 67 percent for those in non-metro areas. In metro areas, 88 percent of all adults have a cellular data plan compared with 80 percent in rural areas. There are many possible explanations for this, including the lack of infrastructure in less-densely populated areas, the lack of competition among carriers leading to higher prices, the vulnerability of more isolated communities to disruptions and service outages, and the relative availability and increasing quality of cellular or satellite service areas where broadband services are unavailable or prohibitively expensive.

Minnestoa has seen some comparative improvement in the 5 years since first surveys. In 2018, the gaps between broadband adoption by age was pretty extreme:

• Adoption for 18-64 yrs: 76.6 percent
• Adoption for 65+: 56 percent
• Leaving a gap of: 20.6 percent.

That was enough to put Minnesota third for largest gap in 2018. We did not make the “top” list for largest of smallest gap in 2023.