With more than 40 percent of Japanese now using the Internet, an increasing number of elderly people have found a new way of enjoying life by opening their own home pages or establishing Net clubs for seniors.
While exchanging e-mail via mobile phones is the fashion among the young, setting up home pages as a means of self-expression appears to suit the elderly as the Internet gives them a link to the outside world from the comfort of their homes.
Every Saturday, Shinji Morita, head of Friday Salon, a senior citizens network in Kyoto, uses a third-generation phone that can send moving images to chat with participants in an information technology workshop sponsored by a seniors' Net club in Sendai.