“Wired Wisdom”: A conversation with author Eszter Hargittai on older populations | The TechTank Podcast

As the internet emerged, so did stereotypes about older people’s use of it. Common refrains about the elderly falling for scams to relying on younger generations for technology support are still repeated today, even as researchers have found their use is quite different in reality. 

While research initially focused simply on whether older adults were online, studies now examine what internet use looks like for these generations and what factors influence the adoption of digital technologies. The book “Wired Wisdom: How to Age Better Online” digs into these differences and explores the role of intergenerational support. Generally, older populations may know more about the internet than what is commonly believed, and this book works to shatter many of the stereotypes about their online usage and trends. 

In this episode of the TechTank Podcast, co-host Nicol Turner Lee is joined by Eszter Hargittai, chair of Internet Use and Society at University of Zurich’s Institute of Communication and Media Research and co-author of “Wired Wisdom” to discuss her research about users’ activity online and the influence of age. 

Listen to the episode and subscribe to the TechTank Podcast on Apple, Spotify, or Acast.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: You are listening to Tech Tank, a biweekly podcast from the Brookings Institution exploring the most consequential technology issues of our time. From racial bias and algorithms to the future of work Tech Tank takes big ideas and makes them accessible.

Welcome to the Tech Tank podcast. I’m co-host Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Center for Technology Innovation, founder of the AI Equity Lab, and publisher of the Tech Tank newsletter at the Brookings Institution. Now today’s episode, we’re gonna dive into an area that I love to talk about, and that is broadband internet.

Since the emergence of the internet, stereotypes have emerged around older people’s presence online and understanding of technology. I have an 82-year-old mother. I’m constantly speaking to her about things she can and cannot do on the internet, even though I consider her to be somewhat tech savvy.

[00:01:01] But there are common concerns about the elderly falling for scams to relying on grandchildren of the younger generations to support their technology use. These issues remain in so many people’s minds as to what do older people really know about technology? Some researchers more recently have countered some of these beliefs.

Yeah, the belief that, I commonly hold of my mother on the internet and they sought to truly understand the older online user where they might lag and examine the differences in the adoption of digital technologies. One such book released early this year by two great friends is “Wired Wisdom: How To Age Better Online.”

The book offers such evidence while examining the main challenges we face with technologies and specifically how they impact older users. Today I’m pleased to be joined by one of the co-authors of the book, Eszter Hargittai. Eszter is a professor and chair of internet use and society at the Institute of Communication and Media Research of the University of Zurich.

Her work has earned numerous awards, including the International Communication Association’s Outstanding Young Scholar Award, and she has been published in a variety of media outlets, journals, and books. Her co-author is John Palfrey, who is the president and CEO of the MacArthur Foundation, and I have to admit someone I’ve known from more than 30 years when I started in digital technology in the community.

Eszter, thanks for being here.

GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: I am delighted to be here. Thank you for engaging with our book.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: I know. I’m so happy. I had a chance to read a, very early copy of the manuscript and I’m very pleased where it actually is. I talked about my mother and her use of technology and I think she’s become much more savvy.

But I can’t wait to dig into your book because I think you deconstruct what we think we know about older Americans online or older people more generally. ’cause the book is very global. So you both are researchers, John, and you, with a wide breadth of knowledge. I wanna start with what inspired you to write about this topic and how long have you been developing this idea? And I’ve known both of you for quite some time, so this one was not necessarily a surprise, but I was delighted to see you both collaborating on it as well.

[00:03:30] GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: Yeah, so I’m gonna go a little bit back, because it didn’t, neither of us really jumped on a topic of studying older adults from just out of nothing. So as a lot of my work has been about digital inequality, differences in how people use, digital technologies. By socioeconomic status, and initially I did work on the general population and then as I became a college professor and I was encountering young adults in the classroom. I noticed that they weren’t necessarily as savvy as our stereotypes would have us believe as all the discussions about quote digital natives.

And, oh, they were born with technologies. They all know how it goes. And so I actually did empirical studies of younger adults at first showing that their skills in. Very considerably. And also showing that people, young adults from more privileged backgrounds were more knowledgeable, more skilled with the internet than their, less privileged counterparts. And having found these differences, I was also starting to think about people of other ages and realize that as older adults started. Going online more and more. There were a lot of stereotypes about them as well, but those stereotypes were from the other end. So the stereotypes there were, as you’ve already noted, oh, they don’t know what they’re doing.

They’re so clueless, they’re hapless. and so then I started thinking. But I know older adults who are not that clueless at all. And so what is the reality here? So that’s where this started for me. And partly it was, and then I actually, did a literature review with, them, postdoc of mine, Amanda Husker. And we wrote a paper showing that most of the research about older adults and internet use was just about whether they’re internet users, nothing, no details. And I thought, okay, that’s way too simplistic, right? that’s not gonna get us very far. And so I started doing some research about older adults through a big interview study that we did in multiple countries. And then let me fast forward a little bit to how John got involved in this. He’s very sorry he can’t join us right now, and, but I would like to share his, as his, side of this. so I was looking to write a book for popular audience about this work. I was thinking, who would be a good collaborator for this? And I should note you’ve known John, you said for 30 years. I haven’t known him for quite that long, but I have known him for more than 15 at this point. Yep, In fact, John and I go way back in 2010, so a decade before everybody started teaching online. John and I actually co-taught a class on video.

Between Harvard Law School where he was at the time, and Northwestern School of Communication, where I was at the time on methods to study internet use. So we did this way before everybody else had to do it. And so we, we had lots of experience, working together. Also, we, co-authored paper and I was thinking, John years ago wrote the book “Born Digital,” which was about children and internet use. And then a few years ago he published a book aboutparents and digital media, and I thought, wouldn’t a natural progression be to look at older adults? So I approached him with this idea and he enthusiastically said yes to co-author the book. And then he explained, two angles on this from MacArthur’s perspective, which is where he was at this time.

So one, is that one of the first big studies that MacArthur had supported early on its years was about successful aging. So there’s actually quite a bit of work going back in MacArthur’s history on work on older adults. And the other is that actually in the original charter of MacArthur, it does say something about, how one goal is to improve older people’s lives. That was John’s connection. So this is how we came to the topic.

[00:08:03] CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: And it’s so interesting ’cause now you both are reminding me. when I met you, I think around the time when you put out your research on digital disparities among young people, I had met John when we both were starting out in the community technology movement. We are probably older adults!

GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: Not, according to the UN’s definition, which is in the book, not according to that, just for the record.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: Put that in there. It’s so interesting. I see our-

GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: Good point though, because from any of my students’ perspective, we are definitely older adults.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: Exactly. what’s so interesting, and I love the way you gave the history. You’re right. We have spent a lot of time understanding young people’s use of the internet and what’s interesting, I don’t know if you remember that little period of time where we saw a lot of groups emerge in the digital divide space, starting to talk about older people, technology [00:09:00] aging. I can tell you for myself, there was a period I was doing a lot of, articles for different, venues on older Americans and the internet. So it’s good to hear I don’t think age gets a lot of credit and gets a lot of time spent. When we think about the research that’s coming out now, I think we’re just so focused on how young people are interacting with the technology on like platforms versus something that’s I think much more nuanced like you both present.

Now tell us a little bit about the findings, right? Because I think the book does have a general purpose. And for those of you who are listening, “Wired Wisdom” really digs into, some of the constructions and arguments that we’ve made about older people and technology. But I would love you as sort to like deep first, tell us what did you find and then deconstruct how your findings went against the grain of what we normally believe when it comes to older Americans or older adults when they use technology.

GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: Yes. so let me just start very briefly just what is it that, what is the evidence that we draw on in the book? initially I did, lots of interviews and my team did lots of interviews in several countries, including lots of Americans, older adults as defined by both the United Nations and the World Health organizations, people 60 and over. And then we did a big survey of 4,000 US adults. And we also review other, that work that many others have done. So we draw on all sorts of evidence in this book. And, and it, in many ways it’s a myth busting book because we really do counter all sorts of myths people have about older adults. I would say potentially maybe the one that’s in some ways the most, surprising to people is that older adults are actually less likely statistically to fall for online scams than younger adults. And this comes from, an FBI study actually. And the, issue is that sure, older adults do get scammed. It’s that they are targeted way more than young adults are. And the reason they’re targeted much more is because older adults are the people who actually have money to be stolen, right?

Why try to scam an 18-year-old what you want, the $50 in their bank account? Not so exciting. But yeah, so older adults in many ways are much savvier, but they do get targeted a lot. So that’s one of the findings. And other area of whether people fall for information or misinformation is actually in the realm of health. So one of the things we learned during COVID was that older adults were actually. Less likely to fall [00:12:00] for misinformation about, the disease, and that is not what we would think based on the stereotypes that older adults are constantly falling for misinformation online.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: I just wanna stay there for a minute. Why do you think that is? in terms of older adults apparently being much more tech savvy and aware, is it because they’re aware of the information or the tech, or is it that they’re, active? So yeah.

[00:12:25] GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: Yeah, this is a very good question and. It seems part of it is that older adults have a lot more life experience, right? By definition, they’ve lived longer, and so they’ve had more time to develop skepticism of content that comes across their screen this time, not desk per se. And so they don’t necessarily just accept everything as is. I’ll say that part of the stereotype comes from a study that did find that older adults were more likely to share content on Facebook, political content on Facebook from sites that were likely fake, showing fake news. The thing is that study, The biggest finding of that study was very few people, eight and a half percent, ever shared such content, but they did find an age effect and all the media coverage focused on the age effect rather than on the fact that overall this really wasn’t as widespread an issue as people like to think. So I actually think some of the culprit here is the media and how it covers findings, scientific findings.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: Wow. And I, think it also is the media and how it covers older adults, right? Because there is this sort of, I don’t wanna say like paternalistic, but patronizing kind of view of older adults.

GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: Oh, absolutely. There’s absolutely a patronizing approach. the, again, the assumptions that they don’t know anything. One of the things I read up on as we were working on this book is this idea that older adults are invisible. which it turns out there have been studies that have shown that they in fact, are invisible to people and that they themselves feel invisible to others. And that’s not good. That’s not healthy. not to mention that we’re missing out on all the wisdom of older adults. If we ignore them. That’s right. So it’s just generally a societal issue, even beyond the digital angle.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: I know. look, they, constitute what I say in my book, digitally invisible people.

Because we don’t see them. Absolutely. But I like the way you’ve constructed this in the book. I’ve enjoyed reading it. It’s around. they’re not seen as you said society, but they also are not seen for the type of aptitude that they have to be aware of how that invisibility intersects with technology. Lemme ask you this, were there differences between people who were in the U.S. versus people out of the country? ’cause the way you structured the book, I think is really insightful. Where you’ve give these stories, right? Where you’re bringing people closer to [00:15:00] the subjects themselves. And, just for the listeners, what were the nuances between, U.S. older adults and those that lived more globally?

[00:15:11] GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: I should clarify that globally. We’re still talking Europe and the U.S. okay.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: Okay.

GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: So we didn’t, we were not, we did not have the opportunity to include beyond that. And I, and because of the way we did the sampling, we, didn’t really do comparisons across cultures. Not just in the book, but generally in the papers we’ve written on this material. So I don’t think we had, we quite had the methods for that.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: Yeah, I just thought it was interesting ’cause you had different kinds of people from all over, the U.S. and, Europe. But talk more about it.

GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: What, I would like to talk about is. That in terms of differences is that education in so many cases is so much more important to how someone uses the internet than their age. So one of the things that we looked at in the survey was, so the survey went out about half a year after ChatGPT got rolled out to the public. So that was in November 22, and the survey was in, late Spring ’23, and we asked a multiple choice question about whether people know what ChatGPT is, right? So there were six different potential explanations and one was correct. And overall about two thirds of the people got this right, but importantly, much more than age. Education was what mattered. Oh, I should clarify that this survey question was not only in our older adult study, but also a study where we had data on adults of all ages.

And so we were able to show that, first of all, up to age 60, there was no difference in whether people could define ChatGPT or not. Like a, an 18-year-old and a 55-year-old were just as likely to know it. and then after 60, it went down a little bit, but education, how educated the person is was statistically a much more important correlate of knowing what ChatGPT is as was income. So two cornerstones of socioeconomic status, two really important aspects and so partly what bothers me in so much of the discussion. Of say whether older adults are skilled or not, is that we’re not focusing on where the actual differences are. And you of all know of all people know this ’cause this is what you work on as well.

[00:18:00] CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: And that’s so interesting too, because it’s like another, I was gonna say, myth buster that you have in the book, and if you don’t mind, I wanna bring attention to this because to your point, like there’s these nuanced areas that with some additional research we could get to the bottom of it.

So I’m, seeing a part two, Eszter, I’m just telling you, I see a part two, but I, was taken based on, where I sit in Washington, DC the, big debate around social media, children’s privacy and social media being one of the biggest concerns. But you both make an argument in the book that tech access increase, decreases loneliness for some of the seniors that you mentioned. And there’s a woman by the name of, I’m into stories, so please. Bear with me, Antonia, that you talk about who went through a recent divorce. She’s got a heart condition, she’s struggling with her health. She apparently has a little bit more isolation than probably she would like to have, and she finds a critical care line in her social media, which is interesting to me because, my mother during the pandemic found the same type of solace by going online and seeing what people were doing and looking at kids of the pictures of the grandkids and stuff like that.

Talk about that, that’s different than what we think about when we think about social media as the evil of all things. But I’m, suggesting that your book poses that technology has different use cases for different populations. So tell us more about that social media case that you guys talked about.

GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: Yeah, absolutely. I would like to think the book has more of a positive tone, while being very mindful of some of the mixed results and some of the potential downsides of technology use. But both John and I very much believe that there is still a lot of potential to technology. You just said some of it is related how it. To how it gets regulated or how it should be maybe regulated. But let me come back to your point. So yes, social media and the internet more generally still holds a lot of potential for people of all ages. But of course our focus is older adults and we talk about how online communities can be such an important resource for people.

I think one of my favorite chapters in the book is the one on learning where we talk about how people can expand their knowledge partly through more formal online options, online classes. Some of them specifically geared towards. Older adults, but also through online communities by finding like-minded others who share their hobbies no matter how obscure that hobby or interest may be. And I still think, I, like you very early adopter of the internet, and already then the, [00:21:00] idea of finding like-minded people who may be anywhere in the world. Was amazing and, this aspect still stands. This is still there. And so one of the things we talk about and I’ve talked about for a long time is that a very core aspect of skill is awareness of what is possible online and for people who do want to help older adults in their lives, or frankly adults of any age, improve what they get out of digital media. One way to do it is to make them aware of the possibilities of digital media. Yep. Yes. Make them aware of how they can connect, how what, might be the culture of that community that they might be stepping into and help them in the initial phases. So this is one of our recommendations throughout the book, because we make all sorts of recommendations, is it’s the initial steps where older adults, and frankly, anyone else, especially needs help because you don’t, you, when you first try something new, that’s when you don’t really know it. And if you get that boost of help, that can really make the difference to whether you stick it out with it. And that’s, for these good things to happen, people should stick with these services they find that are helpful.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: And there’s something else that you talk in the book, which I think is a pertinent part of the experience of these older adults. And that’s the intergenerational contact, right? That I think what your book did for me is it suggested that there are somes. Seniors that are pretty independent, right? They understand the technology enough. I like the way you talk about it. Like they’re not a monolith. There’s some people that even invented some of the technology that we’re using, right? They’re just older, But they all have this relationship with another generation, which I think was also very beautiful. In the book, there’s a connection. They may ask for help and in some cases they may give help. Talk to us about that intergenerational connection that shows up in the book as well.

GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: Yes, absolutely. And you’re right, it is quite beautiful. the connections people can make online are beautiful and some of them are very much inter-generational.

So one of the stories we talk about is a math professor in the U.S. who ends up connecting with. A young man or really boy, a teen in Asia and how he starts tutoring him and they, so it’s, they start the connection more as the, for the young, for the boy to, to help the older guy but they realize they have this mutual interest and it ends up being very much a, back and forth and both of them benefiting from the relationship.

[00:23:52] CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: And that’s so important because I think in the past, when technology was just starting to, become much more [00:24:00] popular, that’s around the time when the commercial internet was introduced, there was an assumption that it was for a particular generation of people, like I said.

Probably our age at the time, right? That’s correct. When we were a little younger, but this was like a new technology. Like I, I realized my kids are growing up digital and so that’s a different type of, privilege that they have compared to other people. this would also be synonymous with the argument that you both are making, that there are seniors now that have basically grown up digital as well. Because in the early years, technology was not readily available. There were digital disparities. Eszter?

GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: Absolutely. And we, keep mentioning our ages, so I’ll just clarify. We’re early fifties, right? Early fifties. Let’s just be open about it. Yep. and yeah, we had it in college and so in that sense, sure. We didn’t grow up with it. From when we were two. That’s right. But frankly, I already had a computer in the home when I was, probably what, 10? Yeah. So I mean in that sense, 10 is still growing up in that sense. We grew up with it too. That’s right. And, I would say, I would argue that because it was less sophisticated than, and we didn’t have all the what you see is what you get platforms.

We actually had to learn how the thing works at a deeper level than when you just, get handed a smartphone that has all the little icons you can. Click on or That’s right. Swipe off. That’s right. Whatever. That’s right. And and the other thing is that, so definition of older adults is 60 plus, but the internet has been around for quite some time. 25 years certainly, already for, in the mass diffusion version of it. Obviously much longer, but to the mass population. Now, if someone was 40 in 2005, today, they’re an older adult, technically speaking. Yep. But that means that they had 20 years in the workforce depending on their job using a computer and using the internet. And so if they’ve been using it for 20 years, presumably they have some knowledge of it.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: That’s right. That’s what I was thinking. I never thought of it that way until we’ve been having this conversation and you’re so right about it. There is a level of digital literacy that exists that might be more, intuitive just based on their experiences, but it also reminds me of now that the internet is much more ubiquitous, we still have the same challenges when it comes to where people live, their income and education. Are we seeing this still permeate. Among older adults when it comes to the internet. people who tend to be more, less, less high income, still struggle to get the right tools into their hands. I would even say with ability as more older adults really. Age in place in a very fragmented, fractured healthcare, scenario and backdrop. Rural, older adults may have different, what did you [00:27:00] all see? ’cause I know both of you have been just totally committed to this conversation as well when it comes to public interest technology.

[00:27:07] GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: Absolutely. And yes, this is, so persistent that even, so I was referring to that question about whether people can understand what ChatGPT is, right. And even just among older adults, because we did it on that survey, we looked at this on that survey as well. Just among older adults, those who are more educated and those who have more economic resources understand ChatGPT better, right? So this is the most recent big technological shift in innovation. And already the ones who are benefiting are the ones who are better off. Yeah, so this keeps repeating itself. there were people in the early days of the Internet’s mass diffusion, who would say, oh, over time it’s all gonna level out. But it doesn’t because there’s always innovation. And with the innovation, the socioeconomic differences continue to persist in who gets it, who understands it, who uses it.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: And it’s so interesting that you say that because there’s so much conversation about ai, coming so fast into the mainstream. But I believe like many people are saying, we’re gonna see like an AI chasm, right? Particularly among populations that absolutely have not yet adopted, internet. Don’t you think, Eszter, like this is what we’ve been working on for years.

GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: Absolutely. But even among populations who have adopted the internet, there’s already, there are already differences. And these will persist because as good as AI are, these technologies will always work better for the people who understand them better.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: And that’s why I think in the book, as we start to wrap up, I thought you were really curious about what then can be done. And this is a book that I think offers for those of you that are listening, not just the regular policy recommendation that we hear in the beltway of DC. So what I found to be interesting in the book is that you do give it some advice that is not just the policy speak that we hear in the beltway of Washington DC.

You actually give some, Input to developers and designers and policymakers who are beginning to think about how these technologies work for these populations. If you don’t mind, give us some of the tidbits that you do share in the book, to share with the audience.

GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: Sure. basically we say that all of these constituents, all of these, actors ignore older adults at their peril, right? So for example, technology companies. They need to incorporate older adults and their experiences and their perspectives into the design process. Already older adults are the people with the most income to spend on tech. So it financially, it makes all the sense in the world for tech companies to care what older [00:30:00] adults think about their technology and how to make it.

Useful and usable for them. So there’s really no reason not to incorporate them. So that’s just, that’s targeting technology, companies. Then there are local communities. Local communities should support their older adults in their technology, uses many libraries already. first of all, let’s keep funding libraries because they’re very important.

[00:30:28] They’re very important to everyone in the community to have access to all sorts of information, which includes information about how to use technology, and it’s very important to have whether, specific workshops or drop in hours, drop in clinics. And some, communities do this. Others, I suspect, due to low resources might have a hard time, but this is exactly the kind of thing communities should be putting resources into.

And then we do talk about policy as well. One of the things that we talk about, and it’s certainly something that John is very much an expert in and has written extensively about, is interoperability and the need to let people take their data with them. If someone wants to switch to social media platforms, let them do it. Oh, I wanna say one more thing on this idea of switching that I, had wanted to interject earlier, which is one of the things that older adults are better with, it seems than younger adults is leaving a platform behind when it doesn’t. Make much sense for them anymore. That’s right. you had mentioned that younger relatives are often, an inspiration for someone to adopt a new technology.

Your niece went abroad, you wanna keep in touch with them, you adopt the technology they’re using there, but now your niece is home. You don’t need the tech anymore. Older adults would just say, okay, I don’t need this anymore. I’m moving on. They seem to have much less FOMO when it comes to tech platforms than younger people.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: I know. Listen, I can’t tell you the amount of advice that I’ve gotten from older people over the years that are like, I don’t think you need to stay with that guy anymore. You know what I mean? I’m thinking about the same thing, right? That older people just are like, listen, I’m not. Stuck on this versus those of us who are not older at the time, we tend to be stuck.

I have a daughter, I can’t get her to move beyond certain things. Yeah. And that’s so interesting too, because what it also suggests is that there are some regulatory frameworks that are being discussed right now that will actually work for everybody. So I think that’s one of the nuances that I got from the book as well. We need to look at things like privacy. We need to look at interoperability, things that are being debated because they have far reaching effects. But then also, I love the way you talk about it in the book. We need to pay attention to these design standards for older folks. So that they’re [00:33:00] able to engage technology in the way that feels most appropriate to them. And that’s not—You remember back in the days, that was the simple, make the font bigger. Okay? You remember, right? It was all about make the font bigger, put more audio in it.

GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: Which by the way, to this day, a bunch of technologies still haven’t figured out.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: I know. I’m like, we’ve been talking about that since the nineties.

Come on, people, right? there’s some design specs, but I, love the way the book is really Hey, it’s more than that. You really give some color to just the range of experiences that older adults have. I’m just curious from you as we wrap up, like this book is obviously for people who love to read about this stuff, but I think this book is also an empowerment tool for the older adults that are gonna come across this book, wherever books are sold. What would be your advice on that one for them to pick this up and what should they do?

GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: Yeah, absolutely. We had older adults we’re very much one of our targets for this book, so are people who care for them. But we hope that this is very much accessible to older adults themselves, because we give lots of advice on how they should think about things with tech. And for one thing, this stereotype about older adults and how clueless they are about tech, it’s one that older adults themselves often hold. Because it’s pervasive everywhere. And so I think they need this myth debunked about themselves as much as everyone else.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: Yeah. I love that thought because you’re right. I think, it goes back to your earlier comment, the media, misinformation, they tie and expand upon these stereotypes. But in the end, I think what you’re just suggesting is that groups have agency over tech, more than we think. Yes. and because it’s becoming easier, I like your nuances becoming easier for them to intuitively catch on that, there are probably more people using it than we actually. Think and we need to change the way that we talk about their usage. Yes. Whoa. Yes. “Wired Wisdom.” Which is why you had the wisdom and it’s not just getting more older people online, right? yes. Are you gonna go back to doing some work on young people with what’s in the mix for you as we wrap up?

GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: I am continuing to do work on older adults right now, but I’m also working on some AI skills questions, general population.

CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: I love it. I can’t wait till that comes out folks. You need to, please stay on top of what Eszter’s work is and tell you, God’s honest truth. She was one of the reasons why I put pen and paper to write the book that I have. We’ve been dear friends for quite some time. Oh, thank you so much I appreciate you. Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t know if you remember that conversation we had. I did it, it took a long time, but I, no,

GUEST ESZTER HARGITTAI: It’s been wonderful to see your book out. I loved reading it.

[00:35:47] CO-HOST NICOL TURNER LEE: I loved reading your book and I wanted to say to you and John, thank you for writing this. Listen folks, if you have not grabbed this book, I’m gonna recommend that you put this in your library, “Wired Wisdom: How to Age Better Online.” Thank you so much, Eszter, for joining us. Thank you so much. And listen, you can get that book at wherever you shop for your books. That book is available. In the meantime, please explore more in-depth content on tech policy issues at Tech Tank on the Brookings site, accessible at brookings.edu. Your feedback matters to us about the substance of this episode and others, so please leave a comment like us share it with other people.

Let us know your thoughts so we can come up with more topics like this to discuss in future episodes. This concludes another insightful. Tech Tank podcast segment where we make bits into palatable bites. Until next time, thank you for listening. Thank you for listening to Tech Tank, a series of round table discussions and interviews with technology experts and policymakers for more conversations like this. Subscribe to the podcast and sign up to receive the Tech Tank newsletter for more research and analysis from the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings.