Plan participants learn in different ways, so one-size-fits-all education programs are less likely to work. According to research with over 6,000 participants, OneAmerica found that there’s a distinct digital divide on how they want to learn and interact with their retirement plans. Not surprisingly, younger people like online tools like calculators, mobile apps, social media and blogs. Older people tend to read articles to learn. More than three times as many people in their 20s will use a mobile app than people over 50 will, and almost twice as many of them will use social media to get information about retirement plan compared with people in their 40s.
Perhaps one reason older people don’t like the online calculators is that the results show how far behind they are in saving for retirement — while younger people still have a chance to reach their long-term goals.
