Między sukcesem a wykluczeniem – kobiety w wieku okołoemerytalnym wobec epoki cyfryzacji

In information society, new forms of media are bringing about a change in the way people communicate. Internet social interactions allow improving, expanding, and accelerating the process of establishing and maintaining social bonds, but they can also be a substitute for direct personal contacts. Maintaining contacts, strengthening and facilitating relationships, and making friends with strangers have become possible through the use of social media. They play the role of an integrator between one’s real life friends and virtual ones. Digitalization of social life can also lead to negative consequences such as internet addiction or the transfer of the private sphere to the public sphere. The article deals with the scope and ways of using the Internet by women at the retirement age to create and maintain social bonds. The results of a survey conducted on two purposive samples, with women in their 50s and female participants of the third age university, made it possible to verify the thesis that as a woman’s age increases, the interest in using the Internet to make and maintain social contacts decreases. Modern means of communication have not yet dominated social contacts of the older generation as much as among the middle-aged generation. For senior citizens at the retirement age, mobile telephones, used on a par with face-to-face contacts, are the most important. Only one-fifth of the senior population surveyed used the Internet to get in touch with other people. Nevertheless, the interest of older women in learning to use modern media for communication is increasing.