South Korea aims to save seniors lost in digital age

A little cheer rose for 79-year-old Hwang Sun-hee after she managed to place an online order at a training session in South 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-ageing country, prompting national campaigns to bridge it.

"You can't do anything without smartphone apps or a kiosk machine... It's too much for old folks," Hwang said at a senior community centre in Suwon, south of Seoul, during government-organised digital survival training.

The so-called grey digital divide has provided some striking examples in the nation of about 52 million, home to world-leading smartphone and memory chipmakers.

Last year, several baseball clubs began reserving a small number of tickets for on-site sales after reports that older fans, cash in hand, approached younger people at stadiums and pleaded with them to buy tickets from machines.

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, a survey showed.

A 71-year-old retired public servant at the same training session as Hwang recalled spending over 30 minutes trying to flag down a taxi on a busy Seoul street.

The cabs kept passing him to pick up younger riders just metres away who were using smartphone apps to hail their rides.

"I felt utterly useless," the man, who gave only his surname, Park, told AFP.

The digital divide can also pose a real threat, leaving older people vulnerable to high-tech crimes such as online scams or limiting their access to medical services, experts say.

A state survey last year found that 60 percent of South Koreans over 60 struggle to use public and commercial services due to lack of digital skills compared with just six percent of those under 40.

"The intergenerational digital divide appears wider than elsewhere," said Kim Jeung-kun, professor of senior business at Kangnam University in Seoul.

He noted that the nation's "intensely compressed" industrialisation happened in just a few decades, while it took centuries in many Western countries.

South Korea which had a GDP per capita below $100 in the wake of its 1950-1953 war is now the world's 15th largest economy, according to the IMF.