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Staying Connected during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of Older People in Mexico and Scotland
During the pandemic older people saw transformations in their social connections due to lockdowns and other restrictions. Technology provided one mechanism for them to stay connected with others, but technology may not be accessible or desirable for everyone. Gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity,...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Oxford University Press
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8682352/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.3532 |
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author | Curreri, Nereide de Oca, Verónica Montes McCabe, Louise Vivaldo, Marissa Dawson, Alison Rivera, Miguel Arroyo, Maria Douglas, Elaine |
author_facet | Curreri, Nereide de Oca, Verónica Montes McCabe, Louise Vivaldo, Marissa Dawson, Alison Rivera, Miguel Arroyo, Maria Douglas, Elaine |
author_sort | Curreri, Nereide |
collection | PubMed |
description | During the pandemic older people saw transformations in their social connections due to lockdowns and other restrictions. Technology provided one mechanism for them to stay connected with others, but technology may not be accessible or desirable for everyone. Gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, age and other factors enhance or limit engagement with technology. This project explored experiences of older people in Mexico and Scotland during the pandemic and examined the potential of everyday technology to help maintain social connectedness. A mixed methods approach included secondary analysis of large-scale datasets alongside primary data. Online semi-structured interviews and focus groups were carried out with 36 older people in Mexico and 23 older people in Scotland. Sampling was purposeful creating a diverse sample across age, gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. The findings demonstrate that advantages and disadvantages accumulated in the life course determine how older people select, optimize and compensate for new ways of staying socially connected during the pandemic in both countries. The use of technologies among older people is further mediated by structural inequalities with differences found between Mexico and Scotland in specific patterns identified. Further, stereotypes about older age and technology use are obstacles to the use of technology, as they affect the perception of self-efficacy by older people. Despite the obstacles, this study has shown that older people have a broad range of resources that have enabled them to cope with the pandemic and utilise technology to maintain social connections. The project offers recommendations to support older people’s human rights. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8682352 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Oxford University Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-86823522021-12-20 Staying Connected during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of Older People in Mexico and Scotland Curreri, Nereide de Oca, Verónica Montes McCabe, Louise Vivaldo, Marissa Dawson, Alison Rivera, Miguel Arroyo, Maria Douglas, Elaine Innov Aging Abstracts During the pandemic older people saw transformations in their social connections due to lockdowns and other restrictions. Technology provided one mechanism for them to stay connected with others, but technology may not be accessible or desirable for everyone. Gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, age and other factors enhance or limit engagement with technology. This project explored experiences of older people in Mexico and Scotland during the pandemic and examined the potential of everyday technology to help maintain social connectedness. A mixed methods approach included secondary analysis of large-scale datasets alongside primary data. Online semi-structured interviews and focus groups were carried out with 36 older people in Mexico and 23 older people in Scotland. Sampling was purposeful creating a diverse sample across age, gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. The findings demonstrate that advantages and disadvantages accumulated in the life course determine how older people select, optimize and compensate for new ways of staying socially connected during the pandemic in both countries. The use of technologies among older people is further mediated by structural inequalities with differences found between Mexico and Scotland in specific patterns identified. Further, stereotypes about older age and technology use are obstacles to the use of technology, as they affect the perception of self-efficacy by older people. Despite the obstacles, this study has shown that older people have a broad range of resources that have enabled them to cope with the pandemic and utilise technology to maintain social connections. The project offers recommendations to support older people’s human rights. Oxford University Press 2021-12-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8682352/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.3532 Text en © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Abstracts Curreri, Nereide de Oca, Verónica Montes McCabe, Louise Vivaldo, Marissa Dawson, Alison Rivera, Miguel Arroyo, Maria Douglas, Elaine Staying Connected during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of Older People in Mexico and Scotland |
title | Staying Connected during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of Older People in Mexico and Scotland |
title_full | Staying Connected during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of Older People in Mexico and Scotland |
title_fullStr | Staying Connected during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of Older People in Mexico and Scotland |
title_full_unstemmed | Staying Connected during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of Older People in Mexico and Scotland |
title_short | Staying Connected during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences of Older People in Mexico and Scotland |
title_sort | staying connected during the covid-19 pandemic: experiences of older people in mexico and scotland |
topic | Abstracts |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8682352/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.3532 |
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