AARP Hearing Center
A new AARP digital literacy survey finds that most adults 50 and older are active online, but their digital confidence drops for complex or risky online tasks, and those gaps widen with age.
Confidence is high for everyday tasks: 93% feel confident finding health information online, and 91% feel confident with online banking. But it slips for harder tasks, falling to 84% for telehealth video calls and 81% for identifying online scams or fraud.
The gap grows with age. Confidence in spotting scams drops from 88% among adults ages 50 to 64 to 74% among those 65 and older, and confidence in telehealth falls from 92% to 77%. The adults most likely to be targeted by fraud are often the least confident in their ability to detect it.
Support for a fix is near-universal. Ninety percent of adults 50-plus back state programs offering free or low-cost digital skills training, including 98% of Democrats, 90% of Independents, and 83% of Republicans.
Together, the findings point to a clear opportunity: broad, bipartisan support for accessible, affordable training to close a digital skills gap that older adults themselves recognize and feel most directly. These are not abstract skills. They are a gateway to health care access, financial safety, and civic participation.
Methodology
This survey was conducted April 9 to 13, 2026, using the Foresight 50+ Consumer Omnibus, a monthly, nationally representative survey of U.S. adults 50 and older administered by NORC at the University of Chicago. The study included 1,077 respondents and used a mixed-mode approach. Data are weighted to reflect the U.S. population age 50-plus by gender, age, education, race/ethnicity, and region.
For more information, please contact Tim Morstad at tmorstad@aarp.org. For media inquiries, contact External Relations at media@aarp.org.
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