Paper Info
Title
Circumspect Users: Older Adults as Critical Adopters and Resistors of Technology
Abstract
ABSTRACT While HCI research has often addressed the needs of older adults, they are often framed as being sceptical of digital technologies. We argue that while many older adults are circumspect users of digital technology, they bring rich and critical perspectives on the role of technology in society that are grounded in lived experiences across their life courses. We report on 20 technology life story interviews conducted with retirees over the age of 60. Our analysis shows how experiences of technology across their life courses significantly undermined participants’ sense of competency, independence, resilience, agency and control. Dissonances between what our participants valued and the perceived values of technology have led them to become critical adopters of technology, and resist its intrusion into certain aspects of their lives. We discuss how the critical perspectives of older adults and the value dissonances they experience are valuable for designing future digital technologies.
Year
DOI
Venue
2021
10.1145/3411764.3445128
Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Keywords
DocType
Citations 
Older adults, Life course, Life story interview, Everyday resistance
Conference
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Belén Barros Pena101.69
Rachel Elizabeth Clarke2114.28
Lars Erik Holmquist31369210.85
John Vines460955.33