Providing Access to Social Networking Services for Elderly People

Abstract

The aim of the Ambient Assisted Living Project Social Interaction Screen is to support social interaction of elderly people by easing access to existing Social Networking Services. In this paper, we present the solution that was developed in the project, the elderly interaction and service assistant (elisa). We discuss the design of the prototype and present first results of its evaluation in Germany and Spain. In general, the results showed that elderly participants with different social activeness and technical affinity enjoyed the social interaction with family and friends through a user-oriented tablet interface. Nevertheless, we were unable to convince members of social networks to share their activity streams due to privacy concerns.