South Korea aims to save seniors lost in digital age
Officials are training more than 650,000 older adults to use smartphones, apps and AI as 60% struggle with digital services.
- Facing a 'super-aged society' where more than 20 percent of the population is over 65, South Korea's government now provides nationwide training for the 'digitally vulnerable' to help seniors navigate mobile devices, apps, and AI.
- Kangnam University professor Kim Jeung-kun attributes the wide divide to the nation's 'intensely compressed' industrialization happening in decades rather than centuries. A state survey found 60 percent of South Koreans over 60 struggle with digital services, compared to six percent of those under 40.
- Nearly 90 percent of taxi drivers use ride-hailing apps, yet more than 80 percent of South Koreans over 60 still hail cabs by hand. In Suwon, 79-year-old Hwang Sun-hee learned to place an online order, a task she once managed by phone or in person.
- During 2025, officials held over 65,000 sessions for some 650,000 seniors, with participants practicing essential skills like paying hospital bills at mock kiosks or asking their phones, 'Gemini, tell me about tomorrow's weather.'
- The digital divide poses serious risks, leaving older adults vulnerable to high-tech scams and limiting medical access. One retiree, surnamed Park, told AFP he felt 'utterly useless' before training, underscoring the critical need for sustained government support.
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15 Articles
SUWON, Gyeonggi Province — A little cheer rose for 79-year-old Hwang Sun-hee after she managed to place an online order at a training session in Korea, which has one of the world's starkest digital divides for seniors. Age gaps in digital literacy are a global concern, yet the gulf has widened massively in the hyper-connected and fast-aging country, prompting national campaigns to bridge it. "You can't do anything without smartphone apps or a ki…
At the age of 79, Hwang Sun-hee has just completed his first online order, under the applause of a community center in Suwon, south of Seoul.... Read more In South Korea, seniors return to the smartphone school appeared first on Le Singulier.
The generational gap in digital culture is a global issue. But in this hyper-connected and ageing Asian society, the gap has been particularly widening, pushing the authorities to react."We cannot...
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