Technology for fostering intergenerational connectivity: scoping review protocol

BACKGROUND: The simultaneous increase in geographically dispersed families and general decrease in engagement in local communities is resulting in fewer opportunities for youth and older adults interact in meaningful ways. Technology is becoming increasingly pervasive and flexible and providing new opportunities to foster intergenerational connection that can be implemented and evaluated across a multitude of populations and contexts. What research has been done in this area is spread across disciplines and what aspects of technologies could make them more effective is not well understood. METHOD: The scoping review will be completed in five stages: (1) identifying the research question, (2) identifying relevant studies, (3) selecting studies, (4) charting the data, and (5) collating, summarizing, and reporting the results. Comprehensive descriptive data from each study will be presented along with an analysis of similarities and differences in research from different disciplines. DISCUSSION: This scoping review focuses on a search of the literature to gain an understanding of what technologies have been used specifically for fostering intergenerational connectivity and to establish what future directions for research could be. To the authors’ knowledge, it is the first scoping review of its kind. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13643-017-0652-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.