Category: Socio-Gerontechnology

Can digital technology help older adults to remain socially connected during covid-19?

During the outbreak of coronavirus in all European countries many researchers, health care professionals and policy makers have raised the concern of loneliness experienced by older adults during a time of social distancing. Loneliness, defined as a subjective experience of social isolation, have been considered a major health risk for adults aged 65 and over for a long time. It may not be associated with the extent and quality of social networks from: a person can feel lonely regardless of the amount or quality of social and personal relationships, networks and social structures.

Now when many countries and governments need to adjust legislation to limit the social contacts, experiencing loneliness among older adults has become a more accurate question than ever.

Many sociologists in social media have encouraged technology users regardless of age to minimize physical distancing, not social distancing. Whereas physical distancing is crucial to diminish health consequences during covid-19 pandemic, social distancing can have harmful effects both for the economy and for public health. As an opposite to social distancing, remaining socially conntected does not necessarily require physical connectedness. Within the help of digital technologies, all of use can remain socially connected.

Or can we?

In the BCONNECT@Home project we have investigated the association between the usage of digital mobile technology and social connectedness with a survey including 121 respondents aged 55 and 74 in Sweden. The survey was designed to analyse the connection between digital mobile practices conducted with a smart phone and social connectedness within three dimensions: connectedness with personal relationships, connectedness with community and connectedness with society.

Oldest adults use digital mobile technologies actively in Sweden

Our study support the argument that digital exclusion between age groups is diminishing in Sweden. In our analysis, focused on respondents aged between 55 and 74 from Sweden, we found that older adults have adopted digital mobile practices to their daily life to an extensive extent. Nearly all respondents use the smartphone for text messages, but receiving or sending voice or video calls is relatively rare. The differences between the age groups are quite small, which shows that even the oldest adults (aged over 70) are actively online in Sweden. Using the smartphone for gaming is a more frequent activity among younger age groups.

Digital mobile technology enhances connectedness with social community

Digital technologies, and information and communication technologies in particular, are expected to increase or maintain the sense of connectedness. Social connectedness, defined as engagement and belonging to one’s social networks, is often considered as a questions of quality and quantity of social networks. In our study, social connectedness based on subjective evaluation of the feeling of connectedness to others and to a community of neighbourhood.

Results show that the usage of the smartphone for digital mobile practices is positively associated with connectedness with community, and less associated with connectedness with personal relationships and society. Older adults who use their smartphone in a more versatile way report more social activities with community than respondents with less versatile digital activity.

Digital mobile technology can therefore increase connectedness in those activities that include attending with events where many people gather or engaging in cultural activities. During a time of covid-19 pandemic, particularly these activities have been restricted or limited.

Against this finding, ensuring equal opportunities for digital mobile technology use ensures that older adults can remain connected to community that has the possibility to alleviate loneliness.

Social impacts of digital technology use need to be re-considered

Sweden is considered to be one of the most digitally advanced societies. Digital technologies in various forms have been seen as a solution to support the independent, healthy and active living among older adults.

During times of uncertainty, the significance of the ability to remain digitally connected increase. In many cases, this digital connectedness have positive effects on social connectedness, but the relationship is not straightforward. This we should keep in mind after returning back to normal circumstances, particularly for those older adults living alone. Evaluating the social impacts of digital technology use need to be continued.

 

Results are based on a forthcoming manuscript:

Kuoppamäki, S. & Östlund, B. (2020, forthcoming). Digital mobile technology enhancing social connectedness among older adults in Sweden. In: Zhou J., Salvendy G. (eds) Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population. HCII2020 Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Cham: Springer.

Why is social uptake of interactive robots lagging behind in Europe?

The European Commission is funding INBOTS – Inclusive Robotics for a Better Society – with the purpose to create a community hub that can bring together experts to debate and create a responsible research and innovation paradigm for robotics. Work package 6 has the responsibility to find out how to promote acceptance and social uptake among Europeans. The first thing we did was to create a picture of what the uptake and use of robots look like in Europe. With data from Eurostat and best practices collected from the 25 Partners from 12 European countries including public groups and end-suers, legal authorities, businesses, industry, academia and policy makers, see more at: http://inbots.eu/the-consortium/.

So, what do we know about the social uptake of robots in Europe? Well, not much but we know where the gaps and weaknesses are. First statistics is insufficient statistics since it is limited to 15-64 years old and presented at a high aggregated level. This means that children and old people are excluded!

However, the comprehensive social uptake of ICTs, can be expected to also nurture acceptance and social uptake of interactive robots. Today 83% of European citizens and 85% of European households access Internet every day.

When it comes to the uptake in different sectors it is clear that social care, especially to meet the needs and demands from Ageing populations is lagging behind. Industry is at the leading edge, having been involved in robotizing from several decades. Still user acceptance is not optimal. Also, logistics and rescue activities is at the leading edge but have more to with for when it comes to robot-human collaboration. The same goes for education which is a promising area according to the eCraft2Learn project. The use of interacive robots in education activities is proven to improve cognitive skills, social and scientific skills. The barriers for further development are lack of supporting equipemnt such as a curriculum and knowledge among teachers. Interactive robots in health care is on the one hand succesful in terms of rehabilitation and powered exoskeletons to support stroke victims and other disabilities and to assist surgery. On the other hand, looking at social care it is a slow uptake despite of big investments and great expectations. It has to be considered startling that the uptake is so low given the large investments made in research and development, both at European and national level, to meet an aging population. More than 1 billion euros was invested in the previous framework program and continue to do so in Horizon 2020. Why is this?

Well, we can see several explanations. One explanation may be that there is a big difference between implementing technology in industry and in the elderly. In the industry today, according to McKinsey 2017, you can automate almost everything while it is far from obvious in the care sector, it is estimated that about 36% can be automated there. Another explanation may be that elderly care is a sector of low status populated by women who do a good job but far from always well paid. The variation is large in Europe and is related to each country’s welfare policy. There are also other posible explanations and challenges. This is what we are working on now.

We will try to see if we can come up with a helpful strategy on how buisnesses in Europe, already established in robotics, can diversify and broadening their productions and markets to include the public and the social sector. What do you think? Is that possible? How?

Britt Östlund, leader of WP6 and Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, in Stockholm