Editorial: Study of elderly and Internet use is worthwhile

It's not that I don't want to be on the Internet ... I need somebody somewhere that can teach me."

With those words, a 64-year-old secretary who testified Tuesday in front of a state Senate study committee neatly packaged both the fear and frustration of what she called a typewriter generation living in a computer age.

It's a pervasive issue in Georgia. According to other testimony heard by the Senate Study Committee on Bridging the Digital Divide in Aging Communities, while 94 percent of Georgians have access to broadband Internet service, only 65 percent use it. According to the Morris report, that's "largely because older Georgians don't think it's relevant to their lives or they're afraid of it."

Legislation creating the Senate study committee was sponsored by Sen. Valencia Seay, D-Riverdale, who told Morris News Service that seniors facing the need, or the desire, to learn how to use the Internet tell her that "(p)eople are not talking to me. They are all talking over me, around me and under me."

Seay's committee is studying how other states have met the challenge, is hearing from experts, and is looking at aging communities across Georgia. It's possible the committee co