Embodying Digital Ageing: Ageing with Digital Health Technologies and the Significance of Inequalities

Urban, Monika

doi:10.1007/978-3-658-17678-5_11

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Hence, such an apparatus neither determines meanings and material beings, nor ideational concepts. It nevertheless provides the conditions for differentiation processes, such as the opposition of human and non-human, young and old, and the inclusion and exclusion of matterings within the scope of a phenomenon (for more detail see Urban, 2017bUrban, , 2018.…”

Section: Some Methodological Consequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Where and How Do Aging Processes Take Place in Everyday Life? Answers From a New Materialist Perspective

Höppner

Urban

2018

Front. Sociol.

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In the last decade, the focus of studies on age and aging has fundamentally changed from biological to symbolic, discursive, and cultural phenomena. Currently, the most studied topic in material gerontology is the materiality of age and aging in the context of everyday life. Scholars in this area have thus been making an important contribution to a material understanding of aging processes. As we understand them, however, both social constructivist and material gerontological concepts reach their limit when it comes to the questions of where and how aging processes actually take place in everyday life. In order to answer these two questions, we review social constructivist ideas with a particular focus on the "doing age" concept and material gerontological assumptions regarding human subjects, their material environments, and their relations. We then suggest rethinking bodily limitations and agencies addressed by scholars in the field of new materialism. The aim is to develop a new materialist-inspired understanding of aging processes that helps to reconstruct the material-discursive co-production of aging processes. These processes are deployed as mutual entanglements of materiality and meaning as well as of humans and non-human agency. This approach emphasizes the decentralization of the human actor and thus helps to map the material-discursive complexity of aging processes as relational co-products of humans and non-humans in everyday life.

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Section: Some Methodological Consequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Monika Urban (2017b) takes this further and points out the significance that social and cultural inequalities gain in the context of the demanding processes of becoming a competent user and manager of one's own health in relation to high-tech home care.…”

Section: How Do Age and Aging Actually Take Place? Rethinking Agenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Where and How Do Aging Processes Take Place in Everyday Life? Answers From a New Materialist Perspective

Höppner

Urban

2018

Front. Sociol.

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“…Urban. 10 ) Here I focus on digital practices that can be performed independently, that are largely self-financed and that are undertaken to preserve or regain health, physical fitness and thus independence for the elderly in their own homes. To that end, two application contexts of digital health technologies for the elderly will be examined in greater detail: (a) wearables and health apps in the context of fitness activities; and (b) digital health practices connected to home-monitoring for the diagnosis and management of long-term chronic conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘This really takes it out of you!’ The senses and emotions in digital health practices of the elderly

Urban

2017

DIGITAL HEALTH

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Wearables, fitness apps and home-based monitoring technology designed to help manage chronic diseases are generally considered in terms of their effectiveness in saving costs and improving the health care system. This article looks, instead, at the digital health practices of persons older than 65 years; it considers their actual health practices, their senses and emotions. In a qualitative study 27 elderly persons were interviewed about their digital health practices and accompanied while using the devices. The findings show that digital technologies and ageing bodies are co-productive in performing specific modes of health and the ageing process. The study shows that digital technologies not only encourage the elderly to remain physically active and enable them to age in place, but also that the use of these technologies causes the elderly to develop negative emotions that stand in a charged relationship to ageing stereotypes. Thereby, the sense of seeing has been place in pole position, while the faculty for introspection declines. This means that age-related impaired vision can result in particularly severe consequences. In the discussion it is debated in which concrete ways that digital health technologies have had a negative impact. The sociotechnical practices associated with wearables conform to the primacy of preventing ageing; passive and active monitoring technologies appear as subsystems of risk estimation, which in turn regulates diverse practices. The conclusion highlights the interrelation between notions of successful ageing and the digital practices of the elderly.

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“…In addition, there are some studies on new technologies used in old age (e.g., remote monitoring technologies); influenced by STS, these focus on the relationship between technology and society. Studies of this kind have yielded insights into the social and societal implications of such technologies for the elderly and for shaping old age in society (e.g., Kollewe, 2017;Urban, 2017;Aceros, Pols and Domènech, 2015;Mortenson, Sixsmith and Woolrych, 2015;Mort, Roberts and Callen, 2013;Pols, 2012). They frequently examine power and aspects of domination.…”

Section: Studying Materials Things In Old Age From a Social And Cultural Science Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Researching Ageing

Łuszczyńska¹

2020

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Embodying Digital Ageing: Ageing with Digital Health Technologies and the Significance of Inequalities

Cited by 12 publications

References 21 publications

Where and How Do Aging Processes Take Place in Everyday Life? Answers From a New Materialist Perspective

Where and How Do Aging Processes Take Place in Everyday Life? Answers From a New Materialist Perspective

‘This really takes it out of you!’ The senses and emotions in digital health practices of the elderly

Researching Ageing

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