New Study Warns of a Growing Digital Divide for Older Europeans

Imagine your life today as an elderly person.

Your bank branch has closed. You need to make an urgent payment, but the only way to do it is through an app you barely understand.

For a simple doctor’s appointment you need to book online.

Logging into most government/administrative portals require you to confirm your details, create a password and change it every few months for security reasons.

Then a message appears on your phone claiming to be from your bank.

Is it genuine? Is it a scam? And who do you ask?

For millions of older Europeans, these hypothetical scenarios, where the digital environment has become daunting rather than helpful and inclusive, have become their reality.

A major study published recently in npj Digital Medicine examined digital exclusion among more than 71,000 middle-aged and older people across several countries.

It found striking differences in levels of digital exclusion, ranging from around 20% in Denmark to almost 80% in Poland among the European countries studied. 

The broader European figures are equally revealing. In 2025, just 33% of people aged 65–74 in the EU had at least basic digital skills. Among people aged 16–34, the figure was around 75%. 

Digitalisation itself is not the problem. Done well, it can make banking, healthcare and public services faster and more convenient.

The danger comes when digital becomes the only practical option for a segment of society which it often excludes by design.

“Digital progress should make life easier, not create a new barrier to participation,” says Francesco Sparraco, Chairman of Threestones Foundation. “If older people are expected to use digital systems, those systems must be designed around real people, not ideal users.”

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warns that inadequate digital skills can restrict older people’s access to essential services, social connections and civic participation.

It also argues that conventional training often fails because it does not take sufficient account of how older people actually learn. 

The answer is not to resist technology.

It is to make inclusion part of technological progress: simpler systems, appropriate training, accessible design, human support and a viable alternative when somebody simply cannot use an app or navigate an online portal.

A society can become more digital and more efficient. The real test is whether everybody can still participate.