Martha Lane-Fox introduces the Digital Unite Academy

Digital Unite Academy offers a Digital Champion ITQ (accredited by city & guilds) for people who are interested in helping other people to learn the computer. Martha Lane-Fox introduces the Digital Unite Academy in this little video. I agree with her that most people are not aware of the benefits of what you can do online and that it is people power what would bring more people online. Am just surprised to find that she's worried whether she's going to pass the ITQ course - not sure how encouraging this is.

External and internal locus of control

This Monday I listened to BBC4 Mind changers about Julian Rotter's measurement of internal and external locus of control. Depending on the person's perception of where the control lies for events they deal differently with life situations. If you have an internal locus of control you might be a 'go getter' and believing that you can change things. If you have an external locus of control you might believe that a higher power has decided events for you and that you can't do anything about it and this can show in for example "learnt helplessness". Particularly interesting for me was to hear that the locus of control changes with age and how it changes to an external locus in regards to health aspects. The Lifespan Developmental Psychology Laboratory at Brandeis University did research on this. Another interesting aspect for me was to hear how Julian Rotter was an academic, but he was also a keen sportsman and poker player and that these activities were for him as important as his research. Which feds my opinion to be a rounded, happy and enlightened person one should not only seek to accumulate knowledge but also to be in sync with your body through either sports or meditation. Surely poker can be seen as a form of meditation :-)

European Year of Active Ageing

2012 is the European Year of Active Ageing. here is the link to the EU website - the about section I find the events calendar on the right-hand side particularly interesting.

Life's third act

I recently watched with my mother-in-law (in her seventies) the talk by Jane Fonda "Life's third act" on TED talks. view talk here I really enjoyed her talk and thought that the analogy of life as 'going upstairs' (rather than going up some steps and after peaking, going the steps down) was very apt. My mother-in-law felt that most of it was very true. When I probed she said that she couldn't remember the details but it felt that way. She made, however, the point that Jane Fonda is someone who has sufficient money and that an older person's development might be very different when they have money worries. I couldn't disagree with this, and now wonder how for example a homeless older person experience life.

Introducing the Social Gerontology Group at Uppsala University

I only recently came across the theory of gero-transcendence, which made me aware of Lars Tornstam from Uppsala University. He developed the theory of gero-transcendence as answer to the discredited disengagement theory. Gero-transcendence, in a nutshell, is a shift in meta perspective, from a materialistic and rational view of the world to a more cosmic and transcendent one, normally accompanied by an increase in life satisfaction. Gero-transcencende is a possible natural progression with growing older towards maturation and wisdom. Lars Tornstam and team form the Social Gerontology Group at Uppsala University, which did work within the framework of the national multidisciplinary gerontological program - Elderly in Society - Past, Present and in the Future. Their current and past research output can be found here

Paper:"Embracing ambiguity in the design of non-stigmatizing digital technology for social interaction among senior citizen

Sokoler and Svensson used ethnographic research methods to learn about social interaction between older residents of 3 senior housing facilities in Sweden. They found that everyday activities such as going on walks or doing the gardening provide a 'ticket to talk' with unacquainted older people. They are argue that many everyday activities in public or semi-public places open opportunities for social interaction because it leaves room for ambiguities and unspoken non-explicit intention where people can choose to take part in interaction. They provide the example of the 'gardening lot' where people pass by, rest on a bench, have brief conversations, swap tools and plants. They suggest that designers (of digital technology for social interaction) deliberately leave room for ambiguity to make it possible for people to leave their intentions of use unarticulated. The thought of ambiguity and 'not labelling what it is for' supports my current design idea of the 'teletalker'. However, the 'teletalker' system itself would not be integrated 'invisibly' in everyday activities, but be placed in a semi-public place to evoke curiosity. I write more about my idea once I achieved prototyping stage. T. Sokoler, M.S. Svensson: Embracing ambiguity in the design of non-stigmatizing digital technology for social interaction among senior citizens Behaviour & Information Technology, Vol 26, No.4, July-August 2007, 297 - 307

Do latest technologies empowered silver surfers really exist?

Title: Older adults' use of information and communications technology in everyday life NEIL SELWYN,STEPHEN GORARD, JOHN FURLONG,LOUISE MADDEN Ageing and Society (2003), 23 : pp 561-582 Albeit this paper is from 2003 (and I only just discovered it!) it's reassuring to read similar findings to the ones I have made with my research. I believe that not much has changed in the landscape of older adults' ICT use since 2003. Selwyn et al write: "Above all it is clear that to conceptualise all older adults with the popular notion of a polarisation between the ‘cannots’ and the highly empowered silver surfers is misleading. Indeed, the construction of the highly resourced, motivated silver surfer using ICTs for a range of ‘high-tech’ applications is erroneous." The paper concludes by considering how political and academic assumptions about older people and ICTs might be refocused, away from trying to ‘change’ older adults, and towards involving them in changing ICT. Can someone provide me with an example of a highly resourced and motivated silver surfer? reference to the paper