A sociological approach to ageing, technology and health

Abstract

This special monograph issue builds on sociology of health and illness scholarship and expands the analytical lens to examine how old people, healthcare professionals, and technology designers create, use, and modify science and technology to negotiate and define health and illness. Far from passive consumers, elders are technogenarians, creatively utilising and adapting technological artefacts such as walking aids and medications to fit their needs. This publication adds theoretical and empirical depth to our understanding of the multiple and overlapping socio-historical contexts surrounding ageing bodies and ageing enterprises, including the biomedicalisation of ageing that includes the rise of anti-ageing or longevity medicine; and the rise of gerontechnology industries and professions -fields that largely accept the ageing body as a given. This collection sociologically investigates how and where these two trends overlap and diverge in relation to a global context of ageing and ageism, and calls for further scholarship in this area. Combining science and technology studies and sociology of health and illness frameworks together provides an empirical basis from which to analyse technogenarians in action, as well as the stakeholders and institutions involved in the ageing, health, and technology matrix.Keywords: ageism, ageing in place, anti-ageing medicine, gerontechnology, science and technology studies Science and technology are central to the lived experiences and normative definitions of health and illness for ageing people. From pharmaceuticals, to walking aids, to cell phones, old people interact with technologies and science on a daily basis. Everyday technologies as well as biomedical interventions can be part of the way older adults pursue, maintain, and negotiate life. In this way, old people are cyborgs in contemporary life, blending machine and biology in both their personal identities and their relations to the external world. This monograph builds on sociology of health and illness scholarship and expands the analytical lens to include the myriad ways old people interact with science and technology to negotiate health and illness. For elders, perceptions of health and illness may not be limited to acute illness experiences, but may include an everyday understanding of a changing state of health and wellbeing that is managed and made more tenable through the use of multiple, assistive technologies and environmental design modifications. Old individuals may rely on a range of everyday technologies such as stairway railings, phones, adjusted toilet seats, and walking aids to create safer spaces and maintain health and mobility. Elders may also

Doing Age in a Digitized World—A Material Praxeology of Aging With Technology

“…Joyce and Loe (2010), for example, lay out how the biomedicalization and commodification of aging is being conducted with and through technologies, pointing out how "[. .…”

Medicina antienvelhecimento: notas sobre uma controvérsia sociotécnica

“…A contenda foi descrita por todo tipo de cientistas sociais interessados nas importantes questões por ela suscitadas, como aquelas ligadas às formas de representar socialmente o envelhecimento e os velhos, ao papel desempenhado pela ciência e pela tecnologia na conformação da sociedade, às possíveis consequências de uma maior extensão da vida para a organização social e, finalmente, às possíveis causas culturais, por assim dizer, de uma aceitação tão ampla do conhecimento antienvelhecimento pelo público (Joyce, Loe, 2010;Lafontaine, 2009;Mykytyn, 2010;Neilson, 2006;Post, Binstock, 2004). Outro ponto de grande interesse era o trabalho de demarcação de fronteiras empreendido pelos envolvidos na querela: muito foi dito e feito no intuito de fixar limites claros entre a medicina antienvelhecimento e aqueles que a atacavam.…”

Conceptualising Resourcefulness as a Dispersed Practice

“…When it comes to resourcefulness, older age is a particularly interesting phase of life because it is characterized by encountering challenges in daily activities due to diminishing physical and mental capabilities [40]. At the same time, research in science and technology studies shows how technologies designed for older people -an area of development referred to as gerontechnology -tend to be particularly closed to forms of situated reinterpretation and repurposing [1,36,52].…”

“…Instead, as Loe puts it, 'what lies before them is time, new family configurations and opportunities for reinvention' [46]. In spite of persistent prejudice of elderly as technologically less skilled, research has shown elders to creatively use and adapt artefacts and technologies in daily life [40].…”