Policy scenarios for tackling digital exclusion in aging societies: an Agent-based simulation

ICTs are increasingly important in everyday life and the digital inclusion of a wider percentage of people, especially the elderly ones, represents a significant challenge for many European countries. In this context characterized by a deep financial crisis, strict constraints affect government budget and policy makers are, thus, required to play a proactive role for a more effective and efficient allocation of public resources. This paper aims to evaluate through a simulation environment the implementation of a set of alternative policies for the promotion of digital inclusion of an increasingly large proportion of aging citizens. This objective has been achieved combining both agent-based modeling techniques, allowing to simulate different policy scenarios, and statistical tools used to investigate the relationship between age and Internet diffusion in the Piedmont Region (Italy). Furthermore, genetic algorithms have been used to adequately calibrate the simulation model's parameters. Simulation results show that local policy makers could concentrate their efforts on a set of complementary short term measures including advertising campaigns about the potential offered by ICTs, the development of more user-friendly technological solutions, the creation of technological centers and the provision of training courses