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Verhalen over technologie: kwalitatief onderzoek naar de integratie van computer- en communicatietechnologie in het leven van ouderen

Zijadic, M. (2012) Verhalen over technologie: kwalitatief onderzoek naar de integratie van computer- en communicatietechnologie in het leven van ouderen.

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Abstract:Developments in the field of computer and communication technology have increased with high rate the last years, and play an important role in today’s live of people. However , there is still the question to what extent this also is the case for the elderly part of the population. After all, they have long lived in a time when this kind of technology didn’t even exist and experienced it for the first time at a mature age. For many of the older people, there still is the question if they have any benefit in using these, for them though still new kind of technologies. However from different studies it came forward that more and more of the elderly are using the computer and the internet. The motivating factors prove mainly to have coherence with maintaining of social contacts and the easy way of gathering information by the internet. Besides that, also the knowledge of working with the computer seems an important promoting factor to use the computer. On the other hand the most restraining factors become apparent as : seeing no value in it, the lack of knowledge and skills or having a general negative stand against computer- and communication technology. However despite these findings, the previous research in this field gives not much information about the view and the experience that the elderly themselves have with a computer or a mobile phone and thereby the integration of these kind of technology in their lives. Therefore the goal of this study is to know more about the meaning which the developments of computer and communication technology had on the lives of the elderly. The broad research question thereby is: ‘What kind of impact has the emergence of the computer, the internet and the mobile phone, and the development in that field the last 20 to 30 years had in the experience of the elderly on their own lives’’? The data is collected by means of semi-structured interviews conducted of a target group consisting of elderly people with an age ranging between 65 to 80. The mean age is 72 years. By means of content-analysis of the stories told by these people, different experiences and emotions came forward in the relation with the computer, internet and the mobile phone On the basis of that, different promoting and restraining factors were distinguished that are important in the integration of the computer and communication technology in the live of this target group. Regarding to the promoting factors, it became clear that the most of the elderly in this group are enthusiastic about de possibilities and versatility with the internet of today, whereby information richness and maintaining regularly contact with family en friends trough internet is experienced as a major advantage. Moreover the most of the elderly experience the computer currently as a important and indispensable technological product. Some of them see it even as a necessity to have a computer at home these days. Furthermore ‘Safety’ seems to be the most important factor for the elderly to use a mobile phone. Other factors seem to play a minor or no role as a motivation for using it. Because of the emphasis on the narrative approach in this research, important underlying emotions and views of these older people in relation to computer and communication technology have been able to become apparent. Because of this, there are besides the supporting results with previous research, also factors found that can give better view about where most of the elderly put value at, as it comes to using a computer, internet or a mobile phone.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology BSc (56604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/62425
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