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“Am I representative (of my age)? No, I’m not”—Attitudes to technologies and technology development differ but unite individuals across rather than within generations

While a broad spectrum of technologies is integrated in everyday life and routines, most research on ageing, health and technology has focused on attitudes toward and adoption of digital technologies including e-health, or home based monitoring systems. The aim of this study was to explore differenc...

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Autores principales: Fristedt, Sofi, Svärdh, Samantha, Löfqvist, Charlotte, Schmidt, Steven M., Iwarsson, Susanne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8061910/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33886658
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250425
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author Fristedt, Sofi
Svärdh, Samantha
Löfqvist, Charlotte
Schmidt, Steven M.
Iwarsson, Susanne
author_facet Fristedt, Sofi
Svärdh, Samantha
Löfqvist, Charlotte
Schmidt, Steven M.
Iwarsson, Susanne
author_sort Fristedt, Sofi
collection PubMed
description While a broad spectrum of technologies is integrated in everyday life and routines, most research on ageing, health and technology has focused on attitudes toward and adoption of digital technologies including e-health, or home based monitoring systems. The aim of this study was to explore differences and similarities in attitudes and experiences with different types of technologies and development within and between three generations. We applied a qualitative, descriptive design and recruited a purposeful sample of participants from three generations (30–39, 50–59, 70–79 year old). The 25 participants took part in 3 x 2 focus groups. Forming four categories, the findings show that technologies enable as well as complicate everyday life. Participants expressed trust as well as uncertainty about risks when using technology and stated that use of digital services is required while support is limited. They identified that technology development is inevitable but not always in the service of users. In conclusion, experiences of and attitudes towards technologies and technology development are not limited to generation; perspectives sometimes unite individuals across rather than within generations. Thus future technologies and technology development, as well as services and policies aiming to support the use of said technologies should consider individual user perspectives including needs, desires, beliefs or goals neglected in the existing technology models, and involve users beyond generations defined by chronological age. Such strategies are likely to be more successful in supporting development of technologies usable for all.
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spelling pubmed-80619102021-05-04 “Am I representative (of my age)? No, I’m not”—Attitudes to technologies and technology development differ but unite individuals across rather than within generations Fristedt, Sofi Svärdh, Samantha Löfqvist, Charlotte Schmidt, Steven M. Iwarsson, Susanne PLoS One Research Article While a broad spectrum of technologies is integrated in everyday life and routines, most research on ageing, health and technology has focused on attitudes toward and adoption of digital technologies including e-health, or home based monitoring systems. The aim of this study was to explore differences and similarities in attitudes and experiences with different types of technologies and development within and between three generations. We applied a qualitative, descriptive design and recruited a purposeful sample of participants from three generations (30–39, 50–59, 70–79 year old). The 25 participants took part in 3 x 2 focus groups. Forming four categories, the findings show that technologies enable as well as complicate everyday life. Participants expressed trust as well as uncertainty about risks when using technology and stated that use of digital services is required while support is limited. They identified that technology development is inevitable but not always in the service of users. In conclusion, experiences of and attitudes towards technologies and technology development are not limited to generation; perspectives sometimes unite individuals across rather than within generations. Thus future technologies and technology development, as well as services and policies aiming to support the use of said technologies should consider individual user perspectives including needs, desires, beliefs or goals neglected in the existing technology models, and involve users beyond generations defined by chronological age. Such strategies are likely to be more successful in supporting development of technologies usable for all. Public Library of Science 2021-04-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8061910/ /pubmed/33886658 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250425 Text en © 2021 Fristedt et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Fristedt, Sofi
Svärdh, Samantha
Löfqvist, Charlotte
Schmidt, Steven M.
Iwarsson, Susanne
“Am I representative (of my age)? No, I’m not”—Attitudes to technologies and technology development differ but unite individuals across rather than within generations
title “Am I representative (of my age)? No, I’m not”—Attitudes to technologies and technology development differ but unite individuals across rather than within generations
title_full “Am I representative (of my age)? No, I’m not”—Attitudes to technologies and technology development differ but unite individuals across rather than within generations
title_fullStr “Am I representative (of my age)? No, I’m not”—Attitudes to technologies and technology development differ but unite individuals across rather than within generations
title_full_unstemmed “Am I representative (of my age)? No, I’m not”—Attitudes to technologies and technology development differ but unite individuals across rather than within generations
title_short “Am I representative (of my age)? No, I’m not”—Attitudes to technologies and technology development differ but unite individuals across rather than within generations
title_sort “am i representative (of my age)? no, i’m not”—attitudes to technologies and technology development differ but unite individuals across rather than within generations
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8061910/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33886658
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250425
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