Elderly and digital health technologies: the relationship between Gerontechnology and Design for active and healthy ageing.

Abstract

The rise of new interactive, digital and connected objects is bringing about significant transformations in our world, generating new ways of living and new channels of access to communication. The healthcare sector is one of the sectors most affected by this digital revolution.Gerontechnology, a relatively recent field of research, studies the interaction between increasing longevity combined with a decreasing birth rate and the development of emerging healthcare technologies (Bouma et al., 2007; Chen, 2020).Therefore, from a theoretical point of view, digital health technologies (wearable devices, social media, robotics, smart devices, virtual technologies, etc.) can support successful ageing (van Bronswijk et al., 2009; Lee et al., 2020), but in practice, the results achieved do not live up to the expectations of elderly users, as the elderly population is less able to access new technologies as they are less open to innovation (Loges & Jung; 2001; van Dijk & Hacker, 2003; Manchester & Jarke, 2022).The EU's 2022 report (European Commission, 2022) on the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) places Italy 18th among the 27 EU Member States, which can be attributed to the relative lack of literacy of the Italian elderly population, although, compared to 2021, Italy gained two points (20th place). In order to limit the Grey Digital Divide, gerontechnology design in recent years has been influenced by the anthropocentric approach, a design approach that places the elderly within the design process (Baker et al., 2019; Vines et al., 2015; Wallace et al., 2020) considering them as a social resource and not as frail, sick and dependent. Design, and in particular the Human-Centred Design approach, can play a crucial role both in understanding the needs of the elderly population and in translating these needs into digital products that are more suitable and relevant to their purpose. For these reasons, in this article we introduce the first results of the research carried out by the Ergonomics and Design Lab. (LED) of the University of Florence within the research programme "Age-It Ageing well in an ageing society", an extended partnership financed within the PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan, Funded by the Italian Government with the European funds Next Generation Eu Mission 4 "Education and Research" Component 2 "From Research to Enterprise"). The Age-It programme, in which 25 partners, including Universities and Research Centres, participate, is led by the University of Florence and consists of 10 spokes. LED researchers are involved in spoke 9, which aims to study advanced gerontechnologies for active and healthy ageing. The objective is therefore to reduce the digital divide between generations through the development of design guidelines that can help the elderly to use digital health technologies consciously and safely.The article will discuss the research questions, method, results and future developments.

Keywords: Gerontechnology, Grey Digital Divide, Digital Literacy, Design, Ageing, Technology

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1004893