Most hosts give you the capability to use more that their default version of PHP. The most common way to change the PHP version is using an ADDHANDLER command in the .htaccess file in the root of your site. There are other ways, this is just the most popular.
Check for an ADDHANDLER in .htaccess, if you find one, put a # at the beginning of the line to make it a comment. Then check the version again. You can see it in Joomla!'s System, System Information. You may find the version goes up to 7.4, you may also find that your host's default PHP is straight out of the Smithsonian, 5.6 or something like that.
Dale L. Brackin
Support Specialist
English: native
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!
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My time zone is
EST (UTC -5) (click here to see my current time in Philadelphia, PA)