Technologies for Promoting Social Participation in Later Life

Abstract

Social participation is known to bring great benefits to the health and well-being of people as they age. From being in contact with others to engaging in group activities, keeping socially active can help slow down the effects of age-related declines, reduce risks of loneliness and social isolation and even mortality in old age. There are unfortunately a variety of barriers that make it difficult for older adults to engage in social activities in a regular basis. In this chapter, we give an overview of the challenges to social participation and discuss how technology can help overcome these barriers and promote participation in social activities. We examine two particular research threads and designs, exploring ways in which technology can support co-located and virtual participation: i) an application that motivates the virtual participation in group training programs, and ii) a location-based game that supports colocated intergenerational ICT training classes. We discuss the effectiveness and limitations of various design choices in the two use cases and outline the lessons learned. 1 Highlights• Technology can help overcome social participation challenges faced by older adults and facilitate social inclusion via virtual and co-located activities.• Technology design and evaluation should consider the diversity of the older adult population, not only in terms of abilities but individual and cultural differences that can shape social participation.• Enabling social participation does not guarantee actual participation, so it is important that sociotechnical systems have an active role in engaging and motivating social interactions.

A Systematic Review on Technology-Supported Interventions to Improve Old-Age Social Wellbeing: Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Connectedness

“…Older adults experiencing loneliness have been reported in the 20% to 30% range in Europe [ 11 ], 19% to 32% in the United States [ 12 , 13 ], and 29.6% and above in China [ 14 ]. These figures give us an indication of the extent of the barriers and challenges to social participation in older adults [ 15 ].…”

Equity in AgeTech for Ageing Well in Technology-Driven Places: The Role of Social Determinants in Designing AI-based Assistive Technologies

“…The new generation of AgeTech encompasses emerging and advanced technologies in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, machine learning, e-health, and mobile technologies to support the health, independence and well-being of older people (Sixsmith, 2021). AgeTech has been explored in terms of supporting older people to remain at home for longer (Verloo et al, 2020), to provide social connectedness (Baez et al, 2019), support wellbeing (Astell et al, 2016) and mental health (Andrews et al, 2019) and connect the older person to their wider community (Fleming et al, 2018). However, the use of technology to provide support for older people to age well in place may also bring with it the potential to increase inequalities in access to health and health outcomes for vulnerable and marginalised people.…”

Digital teknologi for sosial kontakt

“…Årsakene til dette er sammensatte, og alder er bare en av forklaringsvariablene (Neves, Waycott & Malta, 2018). Faktorer som redusert mobilitet, nettverk, motivasjon, tilgjengelighet og IT-kunnskaper kan vaere barrierer for de eldste eldres digitale deltakelse (Baez, Nielek, Casati & Wierzbicki, 2019).…”