An elderly resident learns basic smartphone skills at a community public service center in Lianyun District, Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province. Photo: CFP

As population aging becomes increasingly pronounced, helping older adults adapt more effectively to digital society has become a pressing issue in the governance of aging societies. The concept of active aging emphasizes that older adults should not be regarded merely as recipients of care; rather, they should maintain social participation and physical and mental well-being through enhanced capabilities, supportive environments, and institutional safeguards.

As public services, healthcare, and social interactions become increasingly digitalized, digital literacy has become an important condition for older adults’ integration into contemporary society. This has brought the practical value of community digital education into sharper focus. It provides an important channel for older adults to access and learn digital technologies, while also helping reduce technological exclusion, promote social inclusion, and improve their quality of life.

As an important paradigm in gerontology, active aging moves beyond the narrow view of aging as simply a process of physiological decline, placing greater emphasis on interactions between older adults and their social environment. Aging is not merely a natural biological process; its trajectory is shaped by changes in physical functioning as well as the capacity for social adaptation, institutional arrangements, and cultural contexts. Active aging places greater emphasis on older adults’ agency throughout the life course and on realizing their potential through education, technology, and social support.

Community digital education does more than improve digital skills: More importantly, it broadens older adults’ access to public resources, strengthens their capacity for independent living, and reinforces their sense of social belonging. Digital technologies also enable older adults to more readily access telemedicine, online public services, and opportunities for social interaction, reducing barriers to information and public services. This reflects a broader shift in aging governance from responding to problems toward building capabilities, and from passive care toward developmental support.

Older adults’ level of digital skills has become an important factor in realizing active aging. First, significant disparities exist within the older population itself. Differences in educational attainment and occupational experience have resulted in marked disparities in digital literacy. Some older adults have a strong willingness to learn and a greater capacity to adapt, enabling them to quickly master the basic functions of smart devices. Others, however, are more likely to experience frustration during the learning process due to declining memory, impaired vision and hearing, and slower reaction times. In addition, some older adults are apprehensive about new technologies, fearing that mistakes may result in financial losses or that complex procedures will prove difficult to understand. Reluctance to learn and fear of making mistakes have thus become major psychological barriers to participation in digital education.

Second, there remains a disconnect between the content offered by community digital education programs and the everyday needs of older adults. Existing courses focus primarily on basic operational skills, with relatively little attention given to practical applications such as health monitoring, telemedicine, and social interaction. Furthermore, the lack of a professional and stable teaching workforce is another key factor constraining the quality of community digital education. Most communities rely on retired teachers and volunteers to provide instruction. While this approach can help alleviate staffing shortages in the early stages, it may also result in uneven teaching quality, poor continuity between courses, and inconsistent instruction.

Finally, a sustainable model for community digital education has yet to be established, with further improvements needed in resource integration, interdepartmental collaboration, and outcome evaluation. Some programs remain distinctly short-term in orientation, placing greater emphasis on launching initiatives than on maintaining them, making it difficult to sustain educational services. A lack of effective coordination among departments may also result in duplicated initiatives and underutilized resources. While intergenerational support can partially address gaps in older adults’ digital capabilities, it cannot replace systematic educational services. Deeper digital inclusion among older adults remains constrained by practical factors such as the high costs of family communication and insufficient social support.

In light of these challenges, improving community digital education requires coordinated efforts in policy design, resource allocation, teaching models, and teacher development. In the long term, community digital education should not be understood as a one-off compensatory measure, but as an integral part of building an age-friendly society. Acquiring digital skills concerns more than enabling older adults to use specific devices proficiently; it also affects their ability to maintain basic dignity, sustain social connections, and continue participating in public life in an increasingly digital environment. However, technology alone cannot resolve the digital challenges older adults face. Truly effective community digital education must be grounded in a thorough understanding of their life experiences, psychological states, and practical needs.

Kang Jing is an associate professor from the School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education at Heilongjiang University.