The Aging Self in Time, Space, and Technology

Abstract

This study explores how adults aged 65 + create meaning around information and communications technology (ICT) and integrate it into their everyday lives, focusing on how they use it in the social construction of their self-identity and aging self. Younger cohorts in our population have grown up in the midst of an explosion of ICT while those 65 and over reached adulthood before the ICT revolution. This creates a potential contrast between younger and older adults as they apply ICT to the social construction of self. To start to understand if there is a difference in engagement with ICT, a qualitative descriptive study was conducted with a small number of older adults (n=20), aged 65 + and living independently. What was found is that older adults, recognizing both the utility and the downsides of ICT, would cautiously and situationally use ICT and traditional non-ICT. This extended to the adaptation of ICT to the presentation and social construction of self. For example, older adults viewed the online world as another stage for the performance of the self. These perspectives suggest that traditional theories of understanding how older adults adapt may not prove effective in understanding how to encourage non-using older adults to adopt using ICT. Instead, understanding the meaning older adults ascribe to ICT and its role in the social construction of self can be instrumental in encouraging older non-users to adopt ICT later in life. The older adults in this study unanimously said that if they were nonusers of the technology that they would learn to use ICT today. This is because ICT has changed society to the point that using it is becoming instrumental to our activities of daily life.