This document discusses perspectives on older persons' acceptance of information and communication technologies (ICT). It notes that age-friendly environments that enable older adults to remain active in their communities and that are accessible to all ages can help increase healthy years of life. While ICT offers opportunities for participation, older adults are a heterogeneous group and there is no single ideal older ICT user. Factors like affordability, accessibility, privacy, and how technology might improve life are important considerations for older adults in adopting new technologies. Training in digital skills is also significant to ensure older adults can access the benefits of ICT.

1. ICT acceptance – the
perspective of older persons
Nena Georgantzi
Legal Officer
Carenet Conference - 26th February 2014
Brussels, Belgium
1

2. AGE Platform Europe

3. Guiding Principles
• Towards a society of all ages: Promote
inter- and intra- generational solidarity
• Older people as a resource: take into
account the cultural and professional
resource represented by older people
• Older people as self-advocates: older
people should be able to speak on
their own behalf

4. For a society for all ages
Age-Friendly Environments (AFE):
• play a crucial role in enabling older people to
remain healthy and actively involved in their
communities
• help lower the disability threshold and influence
positively the number of years one can expect to
spend in good health (HLYs)
• are based on concept of Design-for-All that help
respond to the needs of all age groups in fair and
sustainable ways

5. The framework
• CoE Recommendation on the promotion of human rights of
older persons (2014)
10. Older persons should have the possibility to interact with
others and to fully participate in social, cultural and
education and training activities, as well as in public life.
• European Charter of the rights and responsibilities of older
people in need of long-term care and assistance (2010)
6-4 You have the right to equal access to new technologies
and to learning and support in how to use them
• Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (2012)
40(b). Encourage and promote literacy, numeracy and
technological skills training for older persons…

6. Ethical principles
• Affordability
• Accessibility
• Privacy
• Non-maleficence

7. What matters to
older people?
Some results from the Qualitative Study of
the Home Sweet Home project
•18 people interviewed
•3 pilot sites (ES, IE, BE)
•3 use case analysis

8. “Older people are a totally heterogeneous
group and that is a vital point to learn.
You have those who continue to decide on
their daily living and those who at the
same age have given up. You have those
who will grasp the tele-control and flick
through the channels and those who leave
it in the drawer preferring to push the
button”.
Angela Cluzel, AGE Expert on the occasion of the AALIANCE Final
Conference, Malaga, March 2010
Who are older people?

9. Is there an ideal older ICT user?

10. “I grow old learning
something new
every day”
Solon (c.639BC –
c.559BC)

11. Do I need it?

12. Can I afford it?

13. Can I use it?

14. Can I trust it?

15. How will it change my life?
“It’s like those little
gifts that you receive
from somebody and
that you can’t put
away but that you
find terribly ugly”.
Participant from
Antwerp

16. The importance of eSkills
Without good links to where people live,
without bus, train, taxi and other
community transport it could mean we
have provided housing suitable for older
people to remain within, but we have
simply put them in a well-equipped prison.
Peter Rayner
Housing Adaptations Scotland Conference – 2013

17. AGE Platform Europe
Rue Froissart 111
1040 Bruxelles – Belgique
Contact person: Nena Georgantzi
E-mail: nena.georgantzi@age-platform.eu
tel. : +32.2.280.14.70
fax : +32.2.280.15.22
www.age-platform.eu