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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| The wisdom of older technology (non)users | | Author(s) | Bran Knowles, Vicki L Hanson |
| Journal title | Communications of the ACM, vol 61, no 3, March 2018 |
| Publisher | Association for Computing Machinery, New York, March 2018 |
| Pages | pp 72-77 |
| Full text* | https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=3190347.3179995 |
| Annotation | Older adults consistently reject digital technology, even when designed to be accessible and trustworthy. The authors observe that despite there being a more "tech-savvy" group of older people, the problem of older adults' "comparatively limited technology use" has not gone away. They draw on research interviews with 14 post-retirement people aged 66-86 living in the community around Dundee, Scotland, who were open to using email and general Web browsing, but expressed concerns about security and trustworthiness. The authors note the benefits that digital tools would ostensibly provide to older people, such as: easing loneliness and isolation; being in control of decisions that affect them; living independently; and participating in, and contributing to society. They identify and discuss three clusters of factors contributing to resistance: perception of risk; the value proposition; and freedom of low expectation. They also look at factors that influence technology adoption: taking on responsibility for tasks previously handled by trained professionals; the perception that a technology replaces or erodes something of value to them; and cultural expectations. For most of their lives, this group of people had functioned perfectly well without using digital devices; and they raised valid concerns about their perceptions of greater technical vulnerability, and the time and energy needed to maintain technological proficiency. (OFFPRINT.) (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-180320001 A |
| Classmark | UVB: 3O: 3OB: QLD: 3DP: 9EB * |
| *Online access to the full text may require a payment |
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