‘Getting on’: older New Zealanders’ perceptions of computing

This article explores older New Zealanders’ perceptions of the barriers to, benefits and negative consequences of computer-based information and communication technologies (ICTs) through the analysis of focus group discussions involving 98 respondents. Older people engage with computers in a context constituted by discourses positioning them as declining in the ability to learn skills such as computing, but creating a burden on society if they do not. In this paradoxical context, participants identified emotional and material barriers, as well as benefits and negative consequences to computer use that are shaped by age and gender. Significant gaps between the New Zealand Government’s identification of the benefits of computing for older people and the benefits identified by older people themselves are highlighted. The article argues for the need for a more balanced approach acknowledging potential negative consequences, promoting the ‘people-centred’ benefits of computer use over and above the national economic benefits emphasized in the government’s drive to encourage older people’s uptake of computer-based ICTs.

[1]  Supriya Singh,et al.  Gender and the Use of the Internet at Home , 2001, New Media Soc..

[2]  Fred Bourdelais.  Age Is Not a Barrier to Computing , 1986 .

[3]  James Lull,et al.  Inside Family Viewing : Ethnographic Research on Television's Audiences , 1990 .

[4]  Ann Taket,et al.  Doing Critical Management Research , 2001, J. Oper. Res. Soc..

[5]  W. Owen.  Interpretive themes in relational communication , 1984 .

[6]  Suzanne K. Damarin,et al.  The second self: Computers and the human spirit , 1985 .

[7]  Virginia Z. Ogozalek.  The Social Impacts of Computing: Computer Technology and the Graying of America , 1991 .

[8]  Tomoko Kanayama,et al.  Ethnographic Research on the Experience of Japanese Elderly People Online , 2003, New Media Soc..

[9]  C Irizarry,et al.  Seniors-on-line: introducing older people to technology. , 1997, Australasian physical & engineering sciences in medicine.

[10]  Karen R. Barnett,et al.  Information and Communication Practices: the Joint Concerns of Age and Gender in the Information Age , 2000 .

[11]  J. Wajcman.  Feminism Confronts Technology , 1991 .

[12]  P. Tompkins.  Principles of rigor for assessing evidence in “qualitative”; communication research , 1994 .

[13]  J. Kelsey.  At the Crossroads: Three Essays , 2004 .

[14]  Rivka Ribak,et al.  `Like Immigrants' , 2001 .

[15]  William H. Melody,et al.  Human Capital in Information Economies , 1999, New Media Soc..

[16]  D. Morley.  Family Television: Cultural Power and Domestic Leisure , 1986 .

[17]  Sandra Timmermann,et al.  The Role of Information Technology in Older Adult Learning , 1998 .

[18]  C. Estes,et al.  The biomedicalization of aging: dangers and dilemmas. , 1989, The Gerontologist.

[19]  Rosamund Sutherland,et al.  What's the Point of Using Computers? , 2001, New Media Soc..

[20]  S. Wilkinson.  Focus groups in feminist research , 1998 .

[21]  M. Budden.  Focus groups: Theory and practice , 1999 .

[22]  Merry L. Eilers,et al.  Older adults and computer education: "Not to have the world a closed door." , 1989 .

[23]  Sonia Liff.  Virtual Gender: Technology, Consumption and Identity , 2003 .

[24]  Marvin Kornbluh.  Computer and Telecommunications Applications to Enhance the Quality of Life of Our Elderly Citizens , 1984 .

[25]  Rivka Ribak,et al.  'Like Immigrants': Negotiating Power in the Face of the Home Computer , 2001, New Media Soc..

[26]  J. Morgan Morris,et al.  Computer Training Needs of Older Adults. , 1994 .

[27]  Renee A. Baldi,et al.  TRAINING OLDER ADULTS TO USE THE COMPUTER: ISSUES RELATED TO THE WORKPLACE, ATTITUDES, AND TRAINING , 1997 .

[28]  N. Denzin,et al.  Handbook of Qualitative Research , 1994 .

[29]  D. Howcroft.  THE HYPERBOLIC AGE OF INFORMATION: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF INTERNET USAGE , 1999 .

[30]  G. Jay,et al.  Influence of direct computer experience on older adults' attitudes toward computers. , 1992, Journal of gerontology.

[31]  E. Clipp,et al.  Surfing the Net in Later Life: A Review of the Literature and Pilot Study of Computer Use and Quality of Life , 1999 .

[32]  R. Rice.  Primary Issues in Internet use: Access, Civic and Community Involvement, and Social Interaction and Expression , 2002 .

[33]  Vern L. Bengtson,et al.  Ageing and Popular Culture , 1999 .

[34]  Leslie Haddon,et al.  Social Exclusion and Information and Communication Technologies , 2000, New Media Soc..

[35]  J. Weatherall.  A GROUNDED THEORY ANALYSIS OF OLDER ADULTS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY , 2000 .

[36]  Satya Brink.  The Twin Challenges of Information Technology and Population Aging , 1997 .

[37]  R. Silverstone,et al.  Consuming technologies : media and information in domestic spaces , 1993 .

[38]  Angela Trethewey.  Reproducing and Resisting the Master Narrative of Decline , 2001 .

[39]  J. Marquié,et al.  Age influence on attitudes of office workers faced with new computerized technologies: a questionnaire analysis. , 1994, Applied ergonomics.

[40]  R. Swindell.  Using the Internet to Build Bridges to Isolated Older People , 2000 .

[41]  Tommie Lawhon,et al.  SENIOR ADULTS AND COMPUTERS IN THE 1990s , 1996 .

[42]  Flis Henwood,et al.  A TALE OF TWO CULTURES? Gender and inequality in computer education , 2002 .

[43]  N. Fairclough.  Discourse and social change , 1992 .

[44]  D. Greenberger,et al.  Whose knowledge? , 2001 .

[45]  A. Kalache,et al.  Ageing in the Twenty-first Century , 2001 .

[46]  Pamela Roberts.  Electronic Media and the Ties That Bind , 2001 .

[47]  Sara J. Czaja,et al.  Computer communication as an aid to independence for older adults , 1993, Behav. Inf. Technol..