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Seniors find comfort zone on blogs

A growing number of seniors have launched Web logs to keep busy, pass on expertise and meet people around the world.

By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press
Published December 20, 2005

Forget shuffleboard, needlepoint, and bingo.

Web logs, more often the domain of alienated adolescents and middle-aged pundits, are gaining a foothold as a new leisure-time option for senior citizens.

There's Dad's Tomato Garden Journal, Dogwalk Musings, and, of course, the Oldest Living Blogger.

"It's too easy to sit in your own cave and let the world go by, eh?" said Ray Sutton, the 73-year-old Oldest Living Blogger and a retired electrician who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. "It keeps the old head working a little bit so you're not just sitting there gawking at TV."

Web logs, or blogs, are online journals where people write about anything and everything that interests them. Blogs tend to be topical, and typically offer links to other Web sites, photos and opportunities for readers to comment.

Bloggers say their hobby keeps them up on current events, lets them befriend strangers around the globe and gives them a voice in a society often deaf to the wisdom of the elderly.

"It brings out the best in me," said Boston-area blogger Millie Garfield, 80, who writes My Mom's Blog with occasional help from her son, Steve Garfield, a digital video producer. "My life would be dull without it."

Three percent of online seniors have created a blog and 17 percent have read someone else's blog, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Compare that to online 18- to 29-year-olds: Thirteen percent have created blogs and 32 percent have read someone else's blog, according to Pew.

Joe Jenett, a Detroit Web designer who has been tracking the age of bloggers for a personal venture called the Ageless Project, said he has noticed more older bloggers in the past two years.

"Isn't that phenomenal? And their writing is vibrant," Jenett said. He noted that sites such as blogger.com give instructions and free hosting, making it simpler to self-publish on the Web.

Mari Meehan, 64, of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, has been blogging since July. It has given her a voice in her small resort town where, as a newcomer, she felt rebuffed.

"If you can read, you can do it," she said. She titled her blog Dogwalk Musings, based on the premise that she would write about her thoughts during morning walks with her St. Bernard, Bacchus.

Response from blog readers does keep many older bloggers returning to their keyboards day after day. If they skip a day, readers will e-mail the older bloggers, asking if they're sick.

In the two years since 92-year-old retired Tennessee poultry and egg farmer Ray White started Dad's Tomato Garden Journal, the blog has been viewed more than 45,000 times.

White's daughter, Mary, said the blog keeps her father interested in life. White now has friends he's never met in England, Portugal, Germany, Canada and all 50 states, he said.

"You'd be surprised how many questions I get during the tomato season," he said. "There's always somebody having a problem."

[Last modified December 16, 2005, 12:40:06]