Older People in AI Surveys

This note examines sample generalization and survey-construct problems in studies of older people's use of new technologies. About 100 reasons for use and non-use were collected from public surveys and empirical studies conducted over roughly the last twenty years. Individual surveys often fail to reflect this multidimensionality and may give disproportionate weight to risk- and deficit-oriented factors. Small older-adult subsamples and upper-age exclusions also limit what surveys can say about rapidly growing and increasingly heterogeneous older populations. The collected reasons are preserved at source level, grouped into ten empirical categories, and then organized under Agency-Interface-Structure. The final section links variables to their sources and data characteristics so that other researchers can reuse the material in survey design and subsequent research.