Look at the Observer article here. (The readers' comments are also interesting).
Click on the vital statistics link on the right hand side to see a European comparison and other facts. For me it was most interesting to see the various retirement incomes in the different European countries and how the number of working people per retired persons shrinks from 22 in the nineties to about 3 in 2024.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
'Upgrade me' on BBC4
Who else watched 'Upgrade me' last Thursday on BBC4?
I thought it was very good in pointing out how quickly we managed to collect a drawer full of obsolete technology just in the last quarter of the century. From walkman, VHS, palm pilot, old models of mobile phones...
Most impressive for me was how many school children (11-14 years) Simon Armitage spoke to owned a mobile phone. 49 out of 50. All of them had a digital camera. Owning a gadget was part of their identity. Comparing mobiles phones and its functions was part of their 'social dance'.
I wonder what type of technology was central in the life of older people to form their identity? Was it radio, moving images, records, household appliances? Probably all of those.
Was the notion of 'upgrading' also as strong as it is now? Most likely not, since technology usually was built to last rather than to be replaced.
In case you still want to catch it - view it on Iplayer
BBC summary
Poet and gadget lover Simon Armitage explores people's obsession with upgrading to the latest technological gadgetry.
Upgrade culture drives millions to purchase the latest phones, flatscreen TVs, laptops and MP3 players. But is it design, functionality, fashion or friends that makes people covet the upgrade, and how far does the choice of gadgets define identity? Simon journeys across Britain and to South Korea in search of answers. (R)
I thought it was very good in pointing out how quickly we managed to collect a drawer full of obsolete technology just in the last quarter of the century. From walkman, VHS, palm pilot, old models of mobile phones...
Most impressive for me was how many school children (11-14 years) Simon Armitage spoke to owned a mobile phone. 49 out of 50. All of them had a digital camera. Owning a gadget was part of their identity. Comparing mobiles phones and its functions was part of their 'social dance'.
I wonder what type of technology was central in the life of older people to form their identity? Was it radio, moving images, records, household appliances? Probably all of those.
Was the notion of 'upgrading' also as strong as it is now? Most likely not, since technology usually was built to last rather than to be replaced.
In case you still want to catch it - view it on Iplayer
BBC summary
Poet and gadget lover Simon Armitage explores people's obsession with upgrading to the latest technological gadgetry.
Upgrade culture drives millions to purchase the latest phones, flatscreen TVs, laptops and MP3 players. But is it design, functionality, fashion or friends that makes people covet the upgrade, and how far does the choice of gadgets define identity? Simon journeys across Britain and to South Korea in search of answers. (R)
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
"Loneliness is 'hidden killer' of elderly"
Story from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12324231
Comment by Stephen: Note that no evidence is advanced for this claim. There is one reference to the literature in a PDF on the organisation's site at http://www.campaigntoendloneliness.org.uk/
Loneliness is the "hidden killer" of elderly people, says a campaign group, which is calling for greater recognition of the link between isolation and ill-health.
A group of charities is launching the Campaign to End Loneliness.
It warns that lonely older people are at increased risk of depression, lack of exercise and bad diet.
The campaign says that almost one in 10 elderly people suffers from "intense" loneliness.
The campaign group wants loneliness to be recognised as a public health issue - and has published a survey claiming that fewer than one in five people is aware of the link between poor health and loneliness.
The campaign has been set up by Independent Age, Age UK Oxfordshire, Counsel and Care and WRVS and funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
Trapped
While people are aware of the emotional problems of loneliness, the campaign says few recognise the physical damage.
It warns of elderly people trapped in their own homes by a lack of mobility and the loss of family and friends.
A tenth of elderly people see their friends or families less than once a month, says the charity
A lack of social interaction can make old people more vulnerable to depression and to problems such as excessive drinking, poor diet and a reduction in exercise.
The campaigners say that "loneliness adversely affects the immune and cardio-vascular systems" and a lack of social interaction is linked to the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
"The problems of loneliness and isolation need to be put on an equal footing with any other condition associated with ageing. Ending loneliness should be part of the solution to the challenge of reforming care and support," said campaign director Laura Ferguson.
The campaign wants to highlight the importance of loneliness in the lives of the elderly.
More than half of people over the age of 75 are living alone - and about one in 10 says he or she suffers from "intense" loneliness.
According to the campaign, almost one in five old people sees family, friends or neighbours less than once a week - and about one in 10 of them experiences such social interaction less than once a month.
A spokeswoman for the campaign says that there is a need for informal and formal attempts to tackle such loneliness, either through organised befriending schemes or through neighbours helping one another.
She said that it was a problem that was often overlooked and which could manifest itself in other ways, such as health problems.
From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12324231
Comment by Stephen: Note that no evidence is advanced for this claim. There is one reference to the literature in a PDF on the organisation's site at http://www.campaigntoendloneliness.org.uk/
Loneliness is the "hidden killer" of elderly people, says a campaign group, which is calling for greater recognition of the link between isolation and ill-health.
A group of charities is launching the Campaign to End Loneliness.
It warns that lonely older people are at increased risk of depression, lack of exercise and bad diet.
The campaign says that almost one in 10 elderly people suffers from "intense" loneliness.
The campaign group wants loneliness to be recognised as a public health issue - and has published a survey claiming that fewer than one in five people is aware of the link between poor health and loneliness.
Trapped
While people are aware of the emotional problems of loneliness, the campaign says few recognise the physical damage.
It warns of elderly people trapped in their own homes by a lack of mobility and the loss of family and friends.
A tenth of elderly people see their friends or families less than once a month, says the charity
A lack of social interaction can make old people more vulnerable to depression and to problems such as excessive drinking, poor diet and a reduction in exercise.
The campaigners say that "loneliness adversely affects the immune and cardio-vascular systems" and a lack of social interaction is linked to the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
"The problems of loneliness and isolation need to be put on an equal footing with any other condition associated with ageing. Ending loneliness should be part of the solution to the challenge of reforming care and support," said campaign director Laura Ferguson.
The campaign wants to highlight the importance of loneliness in the lives of the elderly.
More than half of people over the age of 75 are living alone - and about one in 10 says he or she suffers from "intense" loneliness.
According to the campaign, almost one in five old people sees family, friends or neighbours less than once a week - and about one in 10 of them experiences such social interaction less than once a month.
A spokeswoman for the campaign says that there is a need for informal and formal attempts to tackle such loneliness, either through organised befriending schemes or through neighbours helping one another.
She said that it was a problem that was often overlooked and which could manifest itself in other ways, such as health problems.
From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12324231
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
BSI publishes BS 8878:2010 Web accessibility - Code of practice
On 7th Dec 2010 the British Standards Institution launched the web accessibility standard BS 8878.
The RNIB writes:
"BS 8878 aims to fill the current gap between site owners and developers by providing a wider scope of information and recommendations, which can be applied before, during, and after the development phase. These include:
* Information on how disabled people use assistive technologies to interact with websites and web products, complete with example personas.
* Recommendations of how to incorporate accessibility considerations into projects from the ground up.
* Guidance on how to compose and maintain a clear, jargon-free accessibility policy.
* References to other guidelines such as WCAG 2.0 where appropriate to close the gaps between site owners, marketing staff and web developers."
read more
A link to BBC's article here
The RNIB writes:
"BS 8878 aims to fill the current gap between site owners and developers by providing a wider scope of information and recommendations, which can be applied before, during, and after the development phase. These include:
* Information on how disabled people use assistive technologies to interact with websites and web products, complete with example personas.
* Recommendations of how to incorporate accessibility considerations into projects from the ground up.
* Guidance on how to compose and maintain a clear, jargon-free accessibility policy.
* References to other guidelines such as WCAG 2.0 where appropriate to close the gaps between site owners, marketing staff and web developers."
read more
A link to BBC's article here
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Call for Papers for CHI Workshop on Bridging Practices, Theories, and Technologies to Support Reminiscence 2011
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~danco/remchiwork/
CHI 2011 Workshop
www.chi2011.org
This one-day workshop explores how HCI-related practice and research can understand and support reminiscence. The workshop has two main goals. First, we hope to bring together academics and practitioners from a variety of backgrounds, disciplines, levels of experience, and approaches to studying and supporting reminiscing. Second, we hope to explore a variety of topics around current and potential uses of technology to support reminiscence, including but not limited to:
We are particularly interested in participants from outside the CHI community to foster new perspectives and collaborations. Our plan is to conduct three short discussion-focused panels organized around participants' interests. Those discussions will ground small groups in articulating interesting directions, studies, designs, and outlines of potential grant and book proposals at the intersection of reminiscing and technology
SUBMISSION
Interested participants should mail position papers of up to 6 pages in .pdf versions of the CHI Extended Abstracts format to danco@cs.cornell.edu by January 14, 2011. Papers should clearly express how the authors' participation will further the goals of the workshop: what do authors offer and hope to gain by participating? They should also clearly, but briefly, present participating authors' backgrounds, in order to support our goals of creating a diverse group of participants.
We will notify accepted participants on or before February 11, 2001. A limited amount of funding will be available, primarily to support attendance for people from other disciplines who are not regular CHI attendees. The workshop will be held on Sunday May 8, 2011 in Vancouver, Canada. Please note that at least one author of an accepted position paper must register for the workshop and for one or more days of the CHI 2011 conference.
IMPORTANT DATES
- Jan 14, 2011: Position papers due
- Feb 11, 2011: Notifications of participation
- Apr 1, 2011: Final versions of position papers (to be shared with other participants)
- May 8, 2011: (Sunday) The workshop! (Here's the list of all workshops.)
- May 9-12 2011: CHI itself
ORGANIZERS
- Dan Cosley, Information Science, Cornell University danco@cs.cornell.edu
- Maurice Mulvenna, School of Computing and Mathematics, University of Ulster md.mulvenna@ulster.ac.uk
- Victoria Schwanda, Information Science, Cornell University vls48@cornell.edu
- S. Tejaswi Peesapati, Information Science, Cornell University stp53@cornell.edu
CHI 2011 Workshop
www.chi2011.org
This one-day workshop explores how HCI-related practice and research can understand and support reminiscence. The workshop has two main goals. First, we hope to bring together academics and practitioners from a variety of backgrounds, disciplines, levels of experience, and approaches to studying and supporting reminiscing. Second, we hope to explore a variety of topics around current and potential uses of technology to support reminiscence, including but not limited to:
- understanding people's current practices around reminiscing,
- exploring empirical studies and theories of memory that might inform technology designs,
- presenting, critiquing, and evaluating existing technologies for reminiscence,
- considering how technology might support new reminiscing practices, and
- supporting social aspects of reminiscence.
We are particularly interested in participants from outside the CHI community to foster new perspectives and collaborations. Our plan is to conduct three short discussion-focused panels organized around participants' interests. Those discussions will ground small groups in articulating interesting directions, studies, designs, and outlines of potential grant and book proposals at the intersection of reminiscing and technology
SUBMISSION
Interested participants should mail position papers of up to 6 pages in .pdf versions of the CHI Extended Abstracts format to danco@cs.cornell.edu
We will notify accepted participants on or before February 11, 2001. A limited amount of funding will be available, primarily to support attendance for people from other disciplines who are not regular CHI attendees. The workshop will be held on Sunday May 8, 2011 in Vancouver, Canada. Please note that at least one author of an accepted position paper must register for the workshop and for one or more days of the CHI 2011 conference.
IMPORTANT DATES
- Jan 14, 2011: Position papers due
- Feb 11, 2011: Notifications of participation
- Apr 1, 2011: Final versions of position papers (to be shared with other participants)
- May 8, 2011: (Sunday) The workshop! (Here's the list of all workshops.)
- May 9-12 2011: CHI itself
ORGANIZERS
- Dan Cosley, Information Science, Cornell University danco@cs.cornell.edu
- Maurice Mulvenna, School of Computing and Mathematics, University of Ulster md.mulvenna@ulster.ac.uk
- Victoria Schwanda, Information Science, Cornell University vls48@cornell.edu
- S. Tejaswi Peesapati, Information Science, Cornell University stp53@cornell.edu
Call for Papers for Special Issue of Interacting with Computers on "Inclusive Design in the Context of Social Media and Emerging Technologies"
Guest Editors:
Jim Ang and Ania Bobrowicz, School of Engineering and Digital Arts, University of Kent
Panayotis Zaphiris, Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts, Cyprus University of Technology
Ben Schneiderman, Human Computer Interaction Laboratory, University of Maryland
Call Description:
Recently we have witnessed an increasing proliferation of new digital technologies such as online social networking sites, micro-blogging and virtual worlds which has changed the way we communicate and interact with each other. Studies are being conducted in order to investigate these interesting socio-technological phenomena.
To date, little research has been published on inclusive design in the context of social networking and emerging technologies. These technologies have the potential to impact positively on the lives of a wide range of people including older people, disabled people, and people from different social and cultural backgrounds. For example, it is claimed that the fastest growing demographic of the social networking sites is women over 55 years old (Facebook Global Monitor, 2009).
With this special issue, we aim to analyse existing and novel ways in which these audiences use social networks and emerging technologies. We ask questions such as: How can these technologies be designed to be more inclusive? What motivates people to engage with these new technologies? What are the effects on people’s behaviour, attitudes and social interactions? What methods can be used to analyse these interactions?
This special issue of Interacting with Computers invites contributions from the academic community, industry and design practitioners. We welcome research papers that trigger discussions based on investigations, case studies and overviews in this area.
Possible topics may include (but are not limited to):
Submission Details:
Please submit a 300-500 word abstract to Dr Jim Ang (c.s.ang@kent.ac.uk) no later than 28th January 2011. Please include full contact information and a biographical note (up to 75 words) on each of the authors.
Important Dates:
28 January 2011: Deadline for abstract submission
25 February 2011: Announcement of results and full paper invitations
29 April 2011: Submission of full papers
24 June 2011: Response to authors
2 September 2011: Final submission
Jim Ang and Ania Bobrowicz, School of Engineering and Digital Arts, University of Kent
Panayotis Zaphiris, Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts, Cyprus University of Technology
Ben Schneiderman, Human Computer Interaction Laboratory, University of Maryland
Call Description:
Recently we have witnessed an increasing proliferation of new digital technologies such as online social networking sites, micro-blogging and virtual worlds which has changed the way we communicate and interact with each other. Studies are being conducted in order to investigate these interesting socio-technological phenomena.
To date, little research has been published on inclusive design in the context of social networking and emerging technologies. These technologies have the potential to impact positively on the lives of a wide range of people including older people, disabled people, and people from different social and cultural backgrounds. For example, it is claimed that the fastest growing demographic of the social networking sites is women over 55 years old (Facebook Global Monitor, 2009).
With this special issue, we aim to analyse existing and novel ways in which these audiences use social networks and emerging technologies. We ask questions such as: How can these technologies be designed to be more inclusive? What motivates people to engage with these new technologies? What are the effects on people’s behaviour, attitudes and social interactions? What methods can be used to analyse these interactions?
This special issue of Interacting with Computers invites contributions from the academic community, industry and design practitioners. We welcome research papers that trigger discussions based on investigations, case studies and overviews in this area.
Possible topics may include (but are not limited to):
- Inclusive design issues related to social media and emerging technologies
- Concepts, methods and frameworks aimed at motivating people to participate
- Case studies of various social and cultural contexts
- The impact of participation on society and culture
- Different user groups’ engagement with social media
- New technologies such as virtual worlds and augmented humans
- The application of these technologies in a variety of settings (e-democracy, communities, sustainability and environment, etc.)
Submission Details:
Please submit a 300-500 word abstract to Dr Jim Ang (c.s.ang@kent.ac.uk) no later than 28th January 2011. Please include full contact information and a biographical note (up to 75 words) on each of the authors.
Important Dates:
28 January 2011: Deadline for abstract submission
25 February 2011: Announcement of results and full paper invitations
29 April 2011: Submission of full papers
24 June 2011: Response to authors
2 September 2011: Final submission
Monday, December 6, 2010
Workshop: Socialising Technology Among Seniors in Asia at CSCW 2011
The organisers say:
https://sites.google.com/site/technologyamongseniors/
Although technological research involving seniors is not new, there is still a lack of use and adoption amongst the seniors. The issue is further confounded by a scarcity of discourse and research seeking in-depth understanding on why this is so. This is particularly problematic among some countries in the region like Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore whose ageing populations are among the fastest growing in the world.
https://sites.google.com/site/technologyamongseniors/
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