THE USE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY AMONG THE MEMBERS OF MATICA UMIROVLJENIKA IN THE CITY OF OSIJEK

Abstract

Purpose. The purpose of this paper is to show how important information and communication technologies are in the context of senior citizens education. Providing high quality education for senior citizens is very important, because including ICT in their everyday life can have many benefits, make their everyday life easier, promote active life, and facilitate their integration into a working environment. Methodology. The paper presents the results of a research conducted among retired senior citizens who are members of the retirement club Klub umirovljenika grada Osije-ka. The research instrument was a questionnaire. The research was carried out from the middle of June to the middle of July 2021, on a sample of 186 retired club members. The questionnaire consisted of questions about their knowledge of media and new techno-logy, possibilities of using them in their environment, and also about their experiences with the use of landline phones, TV, Internet, mobile phones and/or smartphones, tab-lets, and laptops. Results. The results have shown that most participants are in the age group of 60 to 70 years. They have TV and landline phones in their homes. Almost half of them have Internet access and smart phones. They use technology to search for information of the Internet (38 %) and for reading online news portals (35 %). Most of them do not know anything about using MS Office applications and only 6,5 % of them use e-mail. Only 17 % of the retired members are interested in attending an educational program for ac-quiring skills for online writing. Value. The results of this paper provide conclusions and guidelines on how to im-plement quality education for senior citizens. The results of the research are part of a research project named Aktivna mirovina (Active Retirement). A successful imple-mentation of this kind of education would facilitate everyday life conditions for senior citizens and would lead to their easier adjustment to the digital world.