DgcityAt a university for the elderly in northwest China, 71-year-old Zhao Minghui sat through a recent class copying notes by hand as an instructor explained how to use artificial-intelligence applications on her smartphone. Like a fast-growing number of older Chinese, she sees technology not as the younger generation’s territory but as a practical skill worth studying.
Universities for the elderly across the country are expanding beyond calligraphy, dance and singing into AI tools, video production, smart-home devices, e-commerce and even drone photography. At Ningxia University for the Elderly alone, more than 3,600 retirees have registered for technology courses.
The gap the classes target is substantial. China had more than 323 million people aged 60 and above by 2025, about 23 percent of the population, but only 53.7 percent of that age group used the internet, against a national penetration rate above 80 percent. Everyday life in Chinese cities increasingly assumes a smartphone: hailing a taxi, seeing a doctor, paying in a shop or ordering groceries can be difficult without one.
Officials frame the push as part of the new 15th Five-Year Plan, which calls for expanding education for older people and building more senior universities. For many students, the motivation is a mixture of staying useful, keeping in touch with grandchildren through messaging apps and avoiding the isolation that can follow retirement.
The courses are also an acknowledgement that a rapidly aging society cannot treat its older members as passive recipients of care. Healthier, better educated and often more affluent than previous cohorts, today’s retirees are reshaping what learning in later life looks like, one video tutorial at a time.
Beyond the classroom, authorities have pushed banks, hospitals and transport operators to build elderly-friendly modes into their apps, with larger text and human-staffed hotlines, while community volunteers run one-on-one clinics to help residents unlock phones, scan health codes and video-call relatives. Some graduates of the technology courses have gone further, opening online shops selling handicrafts or farm produce, and a few have found modest fame as senior influencers. Universities say the most popular classes are the practical ones, because the fear behind them is concrete: an older person unable to operate a smartphone in modern China can struggle to do things as basic as ordering a meal or booking a train ticket.
