Aging with ICTs in the 21st century

 

Guest Editors

 

• Sergio Sayago, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

• Josep Blat, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain

• Margarida Romero, Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis, France

• Kim Sawchuk, Concordia University, Canada

 

 

Important dates

 

• Deadline: January 31, 2018  -> February 15, 2018 (extended)

• Notification to the authors: March 15, 2018 -> April 3, 2018

• Camera ready paper: March 30, 2018 -> April 20, 2018

• Publication of the special issue: mid April, 2018 -> end of April, 2018

 

 

Overview

 

The aim of this special issue is to bring together a number of high-quality papers that contribute to help us to better understand and improve ageing (and living) with digital technologies at the beginning of the 21st century.

A growing ageing population is changing the world, with important implications for almost all sectors of society, wherein communication, production and exchange of information are of the utmost importance. Information and Communication Technologies are widely regarded as those technologies that make this communication, production and exchange of information possible. However, there are reasons to argue that revolutionary changes in digital technologies, demography and longevity have not evolved well together.

Much of today’s research is based on the assumption that people aged 60+ are old. But what if our older users do not regard themselves as old? The dimensions of ageing that tend to play a central role in studying the relationship between older people and ICTs, and in designing these technologies for this group, are narrowed down to age-related changes in functional abilities and shrinking social networks; yet, ageing is far richer and complex. The main taken-for-granted role of ICTs in the everyday lives of older people is to ‘help them do something’. However, in light of the presence of digital technologies in multiple facets of the lives of most of us, there is room for thinking that the role that ICTs play in older people’s lives can and should go beyond helping them to improve their health, age in place and keep in touch with their children and grandchildren. How can we design ICTs that truly enrich older people’s lives? In addition to this, current research has mainly been conducted with people who were born in the first half of the 20th century. How will this body of knowledge change when we work with older people who have grown up with digital technologies?

As scholars, we should recognize that we still know little about (i) what computers, smartphones, video-sharing sites, smart cities, social robots, and so on mean for an eighty-year old person; (ii) how we should design these and other technologies for the current and next generation of older people, and, perhaps more importantly, (iii) how ICTs can provide new understandings of and improve ageing – a contribution, not a burden to ourselves, our families and society – in a digital area.

This special issue aims to address these and other critical related issues / open questions by bringing together research on ageing and digital technologies conducted in several areas, such as Human-Computer Interaction, Digital Games, Media Studies, Gerontology, Psychology and Sociology of Ageing. 

 

 

Topics of Interest

 

We invite contributions on topics including but not limited to:

 

• Conceptualizing old age and older people in digital technology design in the 21st century

• Datafication, Big Data, and ageing / older people

• Designing technologies for baby boomers: designing for the next generation of older people and co-design / participatory approaches

• Digital technology appropriation by older people

• Intergenerational creative learning and digital making

• Older people, social and digital inclusion

• Technology acceptance beyond perception of usefulness and ease-of-use

 

 

Submission procedure 

 

All submissions (abstracts and later final manuscripts) must be original and may not be under review by another publication.

The manuscripts should be submitted anonymized either in .doc or in .rtf format. 
All papers will be blindly peer-reviewed by at least two reviewers. Perspective participants are invited to submit a 8-20 pages paper (including authors' information, abstract, all tables, figures, references, etc.). 
The paper should be written according to the IxD&A authors' guidelines .

Submission page -> link
(when submitting the paper please choose Domain Subjects under: 'IxD&A special issue on: ‘Making old age inviting and worth living through ICTs in the 21st century')


For scientific advices and for any query please contact the guest-editor:

 

• sergiosayago [at] ub [dot] edu

• josep [dot] blat [at] upf [dot]

• margarida [dot] romero [at] unice [dot] fr

• kim [dot] sawchuk [at] concordia [dot] ca

 

marking the subject as: 'IxD&A special issue on: Making old age inviting and worth living through ICTs in the 21st century''.

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