What can you do when your grown kids won’t leave home . . . but your spouse does? Or your parents need more care than you can provide? What are some practical ways to survive a midlife career change, prostate cancer or the financial strains of retirement?
While their parents may have talked to a neighbor or turned to the library for answers, many Baby Boomers are confiding in people they wouldn’t recognize if they passed them on the street. People they may know only by their first names.
To get help with even the most intimate of problems, this generation is traveling around the world, via cyberspace and the World Wide Web, embracing technology that didn’t exist a few years ago.
“It’s hard to sit down and talk about male impotence at Starbucks,” said Mary Furlong, CEO and founder of Third Age Media, which has tapped into this trend with an extensive Web site specifically for those age 45-64. “But you still have the questions and need the answers. The Web offers a place to be honest and protect your privacy.
“For those in their 40s, 50s and 60s, so much is happening. They need a place where they can go for instant information and conversation about things important in their lives right now.”
The Third Age Web site (www.thirdage.com) wants to be that place. Launched in 1997, it consists of nine primary information “channels” and numerous chat rooms and forums grouped by subject. From child-rearing and caregiving to finance and romance, topics focus on issues that aging Baby Boomers face, and sprinkled throughout are specialists who can respond to personal questions. Channels include:
Technology: For those new to the Internet, this is the place to get educated about basic computer lingo, surfing the net and creating home pages.
Health: Here you can learn about midlife nutrition or the “10 Myths Men Believe About Menopause.” The Diet & Fitness Center lets you privately track calories consumed as well as weight gained or shed. Or chat with Chad Tackett, the site’s fitness guru. A personal trainer, Tackett offers fitness and exercise advice and responds to such queries as how to exercise despite physical limitations.
Money: There are tips on cutting insurance premiums, handling a payout from an employer’s retirement plan or saving for vacation.
Romance: Whether it’s the Dating Connection section or articles on jump-starting passion that draws them in, this is the most popular Third Age channel, and its spectrum of topics reflects the varied romantic situations Baby Boomers are in.
“There are more transitions in life from age 45 to 64 than at any other time of life,” Furlong said.”People in this group are on the cutting edge and want to maximize these transitions, but on their own terms.”
“Caregiving brings about tremendous physical and emotional stress,” said Beth Witrogen McLeod, a freelance journalist and author who took care of both her parents when they were terminally ill at the same time. “We believe we have to do certain things, like keep our parents at home. But we can’t always do that, and then we feel guilty and frustrated. We think we aren’t doing enough.
“Caregiving also brings up fear, the terror of the unknown. We don’t want to recognize our loved ones are dying because that means we’re next.”
McLeod wrote an award-winning newspaper series about her own experiences, and now she writes for the new Caregiving area of the Third Age Web site. The goal of the area is to walk people through basic information about caregiving so they can provide the best possible care for their loved ones and themselves.
Furlong, 50, juggles family commitments with a multi-dimensional career, which includes serving on the National Commission on Libraries and Information Sciences and providing counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Aging. She is also an author and syndicated columnist and is currently on sabbatical as a professor of education and technology at the University of San Francisco.
Membership in Third Age is free. Funding comes from corporate sponsorships, including Quaker Oats, IBM and Drugstore.com, and links to their Web sites are found throughout the Third Age site.
Currently there are almost 200,000 Third Age members, but it’s possible to access much of the site and request services, such as newsletters, without becoming a member. Almost half of the members have a college or post-graduate degree, 65 percent are married and 67 percent are women. An estimated 10,000 people sign up weekly for services or membership.
The popularity among Baby Boomers of Third Age, and the Internet in general, is no surprise to Michelle Weil, clinical psychologist and author of “Technostress: Coping with Technology @ Work @ Home @ Play” (Wiley, $22.95). “Baby Boomers, in particular, feel overwhelmed and lonely. They have so many responsibilities that other generations haven’t had. I call them `endless doers’ because they try to do more things in less time.”
With 24-hour access, the Internet gives Baby Boomers a way to take care of business on their time — even if it is at 2 a.m.
“People who feel so squeezed for time are drawn to sites, such as Third Age, that offer concise, well-organized and pertinent topics,” said Weil, who lectures about reactions to the Internet.
But there’s more to the popularity of the Internet than just convenience and information, Weil said. It has a seductive side as well.
“The Internet can serve as a `techno confessional booth,’ ” she explained. “The anonymity allows us to overstep boundaries we won’t cross in face-to-face conversations. Without the visual clues to assess how people are reacting to us, there’s a sense of freedom and abandonment. It can be thrilling. And when something is fun and playful, we want to do it again and again.”
That may explain why many people who first come to Third Age are looking for information. But they tend to return for the chat rooms and forums, where they can meet others with similar interests.
Creating a community was what Furlong had in mind when Third Age was conceived. “I envisioned a front porch,” she said. “Communities used to be geographical. Now they’re of like-minded individuals who connect on-line and support each other.”
When Jessie Thompson, 50, of Sioux Falls, S.D., learned her mother was terminally ill, she was full of emotions, ranging from guilt to desperation, and she needed someone to talk to. Via the caregiving chat rooms and forums on Third Age’s Family channel, she met others with similar experiences.
“None of my friends or co-workers had been in my situation, so they really didn’t understand what I was going through. On-line I found others who had been there, and it really helped to know I wasn’t the only one,” Thompson said.
Whether they come for information, friendship or the tantalizing possibility of romance, Furlong expects those in the prime of their lives to continue to flock to the Web. Pointing out that every 7.7 seconds someone in America turns 50, she says this is the fastest growing user group on the Web.
“This group wants new information. They’re adventurous and look at getting older as an opportunity. Not only do they want the best advice, they want a chance to share what they know. What better place to find both than on-line?”
