From Triple Win to Triple Sin: How a Problematic Future Discourse is Shaping the Way People Age with Technology

Neven, Louis; Peine, Alexander

doi:10.3390/soc7030026

Cited by 74 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…However, rather unspecifically, technology has been seen as providing great promises for solving existing and emerging challenges that older adults and aging societies face such that at times technology development seems to be the aim rather than the measure. The current aging and innovation discourse's logics legitimize large investments on gerontechnology, portraying triple-win rhetoric with exclusive benefits for the society, economy, and individuals, thereby overseeing the distinction between useful and nonuseful technologies [14]. Yet, it seems that often these investments fail to achieve the promised scale and impact [15].…”

Section: Broadening the Discourse On Aging And Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Wrinkles and Smiles — What is Good Aging? A Technology Assessment Perspective

Gudowsky¹,

Bechtold²,

Capari³

et al. 2019

obm geriatr

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Background: Quality or healthy aging refers to well-being in an older age. In the light of recent changes in the discourse on approaches on positive aging, we aimed to study the way "quality aging" is understood, expressed, and dealt with as a part of contemporary technology assessment (TA), since the nexus between demographic and technological changes has remained a staple topic in TA for at least three decades. Methods: A bottom-up qualitative content analysis was performed to identify the concepts of quality aging in the final reports of a sample of five recent national and international (predominantly participatory) TA projects (pTA). Despite being highly variable in contexts, methods, topics, and funding schemes, these projects display a common core of investigating desirable frameworks and futures for an aging society from the perspective of a citizen, stakeholder, and expert. We identified overarching patterns across different reports through clustering of codified texts and meta-analysis. Results: As a recurring pattern, we identified seven primary topical sectors, known as the building blocks of what may be attributed a TA perspective on quality aging: ethics,

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Section: Broadening the Discourse On Aging And Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Wrinkles and Smiles — What is Good Aging? A Technology Assessment Perspective

Gudowsky¹,

Bechtold²,

Capari³

et al. 2019

obm geriatr

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Here, the "aging-and-innovation" discourse has been identified as a key rhetorical structure that legitimizes investments into technologies for older people. Within this discourse, population aging is conceptualized as a societal crisis, whereas the development of technologies appears to be the solution to the societal, economic, and individual problems that appear through aging (Neven and Peine, 2017).…”

Section: Structural-institutional Theories: Technologies and Social Imentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Wanka

Gallistl

2018

Front. Sociol.

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Digital technologies have gained vast relevance in postmodern societies and digital infrastructures are substantially integrated into the everyday lives of older people. This digitization is reframing the norms and practices of later life as well as the social construct of age itself. Despite the increasing amount of studies in the field of aging and technologies, it still lacks theorizing. This paper addresses this deficit, suggesting that the study of aging and technologies could profit from a comprehensive integration of theories from the sociology of aging, critical gerontology, and science-and-technology studies. We aim to make a theoretical contribution to this issue, asking: how is age being done in a digitized world? Applying a praxeological approach to aging and technologies, we firstly examine how theoretical and empirical work has constructed aging with technologies so far and identify its shortcomings. Some of this work so far lacks a proper consideration of social inequalities within these processes, whereas other studies lack a thorough consideration of materialities. Secondly, in an attempt to equally "praxeologize" and "materialize" the study of aging and technologies we develop a theoretical model that aims to overcome these shortcomings. In what we frame as a material praxeology of aging with technology, we are concerned with how age is being done through discursive formations, set into practice through social and material practices and involved in the (re)production of social inequalities. Enriching a Bordieuan terminology of social fields with notions of non-human agency, this praxeology is founded on three assumptions: (1) Social fields constitute the contexts in which age as a social phenomenon is being done with and through technologies (2) Human and non-human agents are equally involved in this process (3) The actions of the involved agents emerge from an agency distributed among them, and are structured through the power relations between them. Thirdly, we exemplify the application of this model by reference to a research project in the field of Active and Assistive Living.

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“…, Mort et al . , Neven , Neven and Peine , Östlund , Peine and Herrmann ). In the academic literature, these innovations are conceptualized in the term gerontechnology (Charness and Schaie , Graafmans et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

DIY gerontechnology: circumventing mismatched technologies and bureaucratic procedure by creating care technologies of one's own

Bergschöld

Neven

Peine

2019

Sociology Health & Illness

Self Cite

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This study analyses 'Do-It-Yourself' (DIY) gerontechnologies and shows that they can be viable and valuable alternatives to 'ready-made' gerontechnologies. Using the concept of innosumption, we analyze the work of care workers in gerontechnology showrooms in Norway. We show how and why care workers will sometimes advice older adults to assemble DIY-gerontechnologies. Such DIYgerontechnologies are not high-tech solutions made by technology producers, but creative solutions that older adults' suit to their specific needs and assemble for themselves from mundane objects that are available in shops. So far, analyses of the design, implementation and use of gerontechnologies have almost exclusively focused on professionally designed and produced 'ready-made' gerontechnologies. But for various reasons, ready-made gerontechnologies often do not fit in well with the lives of older people. In such cases, care workers guide older people to the innosumption of DIY-gerontechnologies that offer workable solutions that are useful, quickly implemented, easily understandable and often cheap. We show that and how the existence of DIY-gerontechnologies questions the reasons behind the strong and widely accepted assumption that only high-tech innovations are a proper solution to the needs of older people.

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From Triple Win to Triple Sin: How a Problematic Future Discourse is Shaping the Way People Age with Technology

Cited by 74 publications

References 32 publications

Wrinkles and Smiles — What is Good Aging? A Technology Assessment Perspective

Wrinkles and Smiles — What is Good Aging? A Technology Assessment Perspective

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

DIY gerontechnology: circumventing mismatched technologies and bureaucratic procedure by creating care technologies of one's own

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