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“I’m 70… I’m not interested in whatever.com.”

Today, I took a complaint from a 70-year-old woman.

The woman was completely level-headed and polite in her call. She wasn’t lodging a complaint against me or even against the paper, per se. She was mad about our Web site. She was mad that our Web site existed. And she was really mad that we are always referring to it in the print edition.

“I’m 70 years old,” she began. “I don’t have a computer. I’m never going to get a computer. I’m not interested in whatever .com. I just want my news.”

She referred to a specific column that always runs online as what put her over today. There was a blurb from it in the print edition with a refer to the site to read the rest.

I wasn’t sure what to say, really. This complaint was so counter-intuitive to my training and thinking. I just explained to her that what we put online is supplemental to what runs in the paper. There is still just as much news in the paper as ever before — more, actually, following a complete overhaul of the paper last summer. And I told her that what the Internet allows us to do is add more information that in the past we wouldn’t have been able to fit in the printed paper at all.

Her reply? “If there isn’t enough space to run it in the paper, it shouldn’t run at all.”

Sigh. I don’t know if I made her feel any better, but I think she just wanted to make sure she vented her frustration (and that of her “friends who are also elderly and aren’t interested in the Internet or computers”). Not that it will impact anything, but I did tell the managing editor after I hung up. I figured I should at least let her point be known.

But, this really struck a chord with me. I wonder how many people there are out there like her? In our rush to get more, faster, online… who are we actually leaving behind? Does a 70-year-old reader mean any less than a 27-year-old one? (If you ask the advertisers, yes. But that is beside the point.) I don’t know. True the 27-something has much more potential for future readership, and the 70-year-old has already established a lifetime reading habit she’s unlikely to just quit now. But should we punish her for being old-fashioned or uncomfortable with technology? Should we punish her for being loyal to the dead-tree edition as we lament the declining circulations?

There really isn’t a solution. And unfortunately, this woman and others like her are on the losing side of a battle that’s going to continue for a very long time. The woman’s argument that “computers will be the downfall of us” isn’t new. But for the first time, she made me actually think that there was an opposite to the movement toward online journalism. It doesn’t change my views or opinions, but it has made me more aware and sensitive to the fact that there is a whole facet of the world, including my community, that can’t or simply doesn’t want to “check out more at jconline.com.” It’s worth considering.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 10:26 pm and is filed under Commentary, Journalism, Lafayette, Offline, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to ““I’m 70… I’m not interested in whatever.com.””

  1. Howard Owens Says:
    March 27th, 2007 at 1:19 am

    My dad is 70. He’s had a computer for close to 10 years. He digitizes old 78 records and does digital photography. He keeps all his finances and watches his stocks on his computer. He follows home town news on his computer. He uses e-mail to communicate with many members of the family, including some who are older than him.

    Last week, my dad asked me to set up a blog for him.

    Your old lady wants the world to conform to her version of what it should be, but part of maturity is accepting that not everybody sees the world as you do, and that you have to accept the differences, even if that means sometimes those differences are right in your face. Your old lady doesn’t get to deny other readers the opportunity to know what’s on the web just because she doesn’t like it. Would she get to dictate to the rest of the readers if she didn’t want to see any more stories about Iraq?

  2. Dana Says:
    March 27th, 2007 at 9:15 am

    As you said, it’s supplemental–at least for now. This woman probably wouldn’t understand, but the print edition can’t have interactive maps and video clips and online polls and room for additional photos.
    If the 70-year-old woman is not interested in these things, than she isn’t on the losing side of anything. She still gets her newspaper, and as you pointed out, more news than before. She’d have a point if you were taking away her newspaper in favor of the Web. But because she doesn’t own a computer and doesn’t WANT a computer she wants others to not want one either?
    Right now this is a win-win time period for everyone who consumes media–visual, verbal and graphic learners are all getting gobs of options for consuming media. People who want to deny those opportunities to others because they don’t want them baffle me. How would she feel if (or potentially when) the day comes that the 20-somethings (or progressive 70-somethings =) say “Hey, I only read the online version and I don’t WANT a print version. It bothers me that it even exists and I think anyone who reads it should have it taken away even though it isn’t hurting my news intake at all.”
    Perhaps she senses that day coming and is trying to do her part to squash it early. *shrugs*

  3. Meranda Says:
    March 27th, 2007 at 9:25 am

    Howard —
    I don’t disagree with you at all. My grandparents are 80 and 85. They own a computer and use it to access the Internet, send e-mail and get photos of their kids, grandkids and great-grandkids who are spread out from sea to sea. (Granted they use dial-up, but they also don’t pay for cable or use the net enough to warrant high speed prices.) I’ve never talked to them about their news consuming habits except to hear everytime I stop by what shambles the Beacon is in, how it’s not what it used to be and how I should go save it. But I digress. Judging by the stacks of newspapers always on their table and the half-dozen magazine subscriptions that bear my grandma’s name, I’d say they’re still pretty much on the print side. That is expected. Still, they “get it” and realize that it’s not about them. It’s not that I think the woman wanted to punish everyone else, and it’s not like it matters if she did — she’s holding staunchly to the losing side. She knew her complaint was essentially like, I don’t know, peeing in the ocean. I just thought it was an interesting counter-argument I’d never come across or thought about before.