Keywords

1 Introduction

Global population ageing is one of the megatrends of the twenty-first century. In Africa—still characterized by its youthfulness—the increase in numbers of older people intersects with another post-millennium megatrend: the immense speed of developments in ICT, its uptake, and the technology-induced transformation of everyday life across the continent. These two intersecting trends underscore issues of access to ICT of older persons in relation to the generational digital divide. This divide relates partly to older adults’ adoption of technologies based on structural factors within the cohorts/generations of older persons (Fang et al., 2019); those who, for example, have more resources and a better educational background, are more likely to use technologies that enhance their access and connectedness to their families and communities. Gender differences complicate these patterns. The digital divide also involves a perpetual fault line across generations, with older generations relentlessly perceived as naïve digital migrants and younger generations as savvy digital natives. This dichotomy is not just over-simplistic but downright ageist and begs to be problematized.

2 Problematizing the Ageing–Technology Interface

Where population ageing is often seen as a major “societal challenge” (Cuijpers & van Lente, 2015, p. 54), technological solutions based on innovation are regarded as a useful (and by some the ultimate) modus through which such challenges can at least partly be addressed (Silver & Johnson, 2018; Silver et al., 2019). However, doubts remain about whether technologies actually fulfil older users’ needs and wishes and whether technologies developed specifically for older users necessarily protect and consider key ethical values. Empirical evidence suggests that the development and use of technologies for older persons is not as rosy as intended in terms of unredeemed returns on investment and the often unintended consequences of, or unexpected responses to such technologies (Fernández-Ardèvol, 2016; Golant, 2017; Nierling & Domínguez-Rué, 2016; Tomlinson et al., 2013). The complex relationship between the ageing individual and technology was already pointed out at the turn of the century by Charness et al. (2001) in terms of the prospective benefits and the potential risks and challenges of such interaction. More recent academic work (Felsted & Wright, 2014; Fingerman et al., 2020; Peine et al., 2015) has likewise pointed to the need to shift the focus from the technological to the human aspects of ICT development, that is, to understand the co-construction of the phenomenon of ageing and the role of technology, and to support the inclusion of older adults in the process.

The realistic and sensitive inclusion of older persons in technology (eInclusion) is an imperative—specifically in developing world contexts where resources are limited. Mobile connectivity potentially provides older adults with access to important social, emotional, and tangible resources, such as, for example, those that provide life-enhancing environments, including education, health, service delivery and financial inclusion (Silver & Johnson, 2018). Yet older adults’ technology use remains complicated in terms of pervasive generational and cohort effects that underpin digital divides—anticipated to continue as new and updated technologies are introduced, and to persist and be perpetuated between generations, even as older cohorts become more digitally advanced.

We draw, for the rest of this discussion, on our community-based project during which we gathered data to develop a technology artefact in support of older South Africans’ access to information about municipal services. Our findings drew attention to transferable pointers of potential use for planning and implementing future ICT projects in the developing world and beyond.

3 Transferable Knowledge for eInclusion of Older Persons

We outline several findings from our research that specifically relate to older cell phone users, then we discuss broader themes related to intergenerational eInclusion. The list of findings serves the purpose of a summary, essentially recapping the core story of the Yabelana artefact.

  • Older people (across socio-economic categories) who were not able to use their cell phones optimally were, on the whole, keen to learn how to use the functions offered by their mobile devices. To this end they were open to learn and accept help from younger generations, provided it was offered respectfully, with due regard for their dignity;

  • Older individuals made use of their cell phones to access services, but used them mostly to manage and maintain relationships. The instrument was for them a means to an end and did not have intrinsic meaning as a technological device;

  • While older adults acknowledged their digital dependencies as a major drawback, they maintained their autonomy and agency as owners of their devices, and did so partly by using their networks as a secretariat or web of proxies in order to navigate the support they needed. Autonomy did not necessarily exclude interdependence, and interdependence did not mean the surrender of autonomy.

This outline of basic findings about cell phone use by older persons in our South African research communities frames several themes, described below, that guided the development of our Yabelana technology and that offer a foundation for similar community-based ICT solutions to benefit older generations.

3.1 Intergenerational Approach

A major insight—easy to exaggerate but complicated to understand—across the course of this volume pertains to the seemingly unlikely potential that the digital divide offers for intergenerational digital inclusion; when a divide becomes an opportunity; when dependencies across the divide become interdependencies. The (South) African context—where most households are multigenerational with different age cohorts living in close proximity to one another, and where the cell phone mediates the space—provides for an intra/intergenerational contact zone (ICZ). The mutual dependencies in these households further enhances intergenerationality: younger (often unemployed) age groups look for subsistence (including the sponsoring of mobile data) to older people who receive a monthly means-tested old age grant; older people are dependent on the assistance of younger ones to help them to navigate technology, generally, and their cell phones specifically (also see Hoffman, 2016; Hoffman, 2019 for a general overview of the interdependencies). There are thus existing or newly generated intergenerational dynamics (of whatever nature: good or bad), in spite of the digital divide and resulting from the interdependencies between the generations and the material presence of the cell phone.

These interdependencies offer a space/opportunity (albeit forced and compulsory) for intergenerational negotiation to respond to the aspirations, realities, and challenges of mobile technologies. Intergenerational eInclusion provides an opportunity to transcend the binary opposites currently prevalent in the discourses about older generations generally, and particularly in relation to ICT, including ability–disability, can–cannot, potential–unrealistic/unfeasible, good–bad, past–present, active–passive, digital natives–digital migrants, modern–traditional. Such binary oppositions around and about the digital divide reduce the possibilities for empathic understanding of the complexity of challenges and relations. However, these interdependencies do not necessarily make for a healthy intergenerational dynamic. Although they potentially create an ICZ for negotiation, reciprocities, and learning, we also observed that complexities related to familial or other close-knit interdependencies and dynamics within the private space could compromise intergenerational relationships and older individuals’ optimal use of technology.

3.2 Intergenerational Contact Zones

Intergenerational contact zones serve as focal points for different generations to connect, interact, build relationships, and, if needed and desired, work together to address issues of concern. These ICZs—either through serendipity or design, or spontaneous or planned modes of interaction—can function as hubs for a wide variety of pursuits (Kaplan et al., 2020). In our case, ICZs around the cell phone open up new pathways for exploration and discovery across generations in real time or virtually. However, given the complexities related to familial or other close-knit dependencies and dynamics in the private space, the ICZ created around the cell phone in a planned intergenerational design in the public domain offers a range of opportunities to bridge diverse generational perspectives and experiences.

3.3 Planned Intergenerational Programming for eInclusion

The core idea at the heart of formal intergenerational programming is to facilitate a planned process of reflexivity through which to understand the generational other, what they value and their capabilities (Kaplan et al., 2017). Biggs and Lowenstein (2011, p. 108) describe this as generational intelligence: “allowing empathic understanding of oneself and other, and when contesting definitions of generation and ageing coexist, enhancing the possibilities for shared problem-solving”. Such initiatives would take into account cohort expectations, historical and life-course experience, and ways to deal with ambivalences. Roos (2011) suggests that the space between the generations can be explored through an intergenerational group reflecting technique, wherein generations voice their needs and expectations in each other’s presence to discover the generational other and to establish mutual ground.

3.4 Older User-Centric Participation towards eInclusion

As the WHO/UN Decade of Healthy Ageing launched in 2021, older persons, policy makers and practitioners are increasingly adopting and adapting to technology to protect and maintain health and to improve lives (Dixon, 2021). Where not adopted, these types of technology are increasingly contemplated for implementation. This acceptance and use of technology still goes against widely held assumptions—many founded in ageist attitudes—about older persons’ perceived inability and unwillingness to learn, or to accept and adapt to changes. Instead, in reality, we are seeing how technology actually connects societies—within families, between caregivers and those for whom they care, and across generations.

Technological advances are becoming entrenched in many aspects of many societies; they hold the potential to create opportunities for inclusive and sustainable development, and provide tools to surmount the challenges faced by many individuals to participate fully in socio-economic development processes. However, limited and non-inclusive access to ICTs can intensify existing inequalities and create new ones. The Covid-19 pandemic is a case in point. Digital technologies have supported efforts to fight the virus by enabling access to health care (through e-health and telemedicine), allowed students to continue their education (through remote learning and schooling), and enabled businesses and workers to use teleworking to remain active and to contribute to their respective economies. Technology has provided access to goods and services through e-commerce, including food delivery services, for example. Importantly, it has enabled family and friends to stay connected through months of physical distance, thus helping to alleviate social isolation. Yet, it is also clear that these technology-based benefits are not equally shared by all countries or segments of society, and that, where access to and participation in opportunities provided by digital technologies are relatively or highly limited, many have been left behind.

Including marginalized older adults more optimally in technology-related research requires facilitators who are familiar with the sociocultural context and implicit norms guiding intergenerational behaviour, and who apply relevant and appropriate social engagement facilitation strategies. A both/and approach is suggested, in which socio-gerontologists/gerontechnologists and design science experts work together in the development of a technology artefact from a needs-driven and user-centric perspective. This approach not only enhances the rigour of the academic project and the relevance of the artefact for long-term use and sustainability, but also maximizes the inclusion of older end-users more broadly.

Community-based ethics sensitive to diversity (context, relationships and older participants) not only guide the ethical conduct for this type of research project but also support the future adoption and use of technology artefacts and the inclusion of older individuals with diverse needs and backgrounds. Decision making in relation to older research participants subscribes to the ethical position that not only their rights but also their dignity need to be protected. Botes (2000) warns against narrow ethical-decision making where the application is favoured of objective universal rules, impartial enough to ensure the equitable treatment of everyone but oblivious of the place or uniqueness of the individual or of the community. Our study demonstrated that ethical research conduct needs to involve creative strategies to address the unique needs of their participants, enabling them to exercise choices.

4 The Bottom Line: Person and Technology/Environment Fit

Ageing and engaging with technology is complex; hence, following the thinking of Zaidi and Howse (2017 p. 8), we recommend a both/and approach: offer usable and useful digital solutions, attractive to older end-users to improve their quality of life on the one hand, and create a social environment that is rich in opportunities for encouraging and maintaining technology engagement in older persons on the other. Older persons’ use of technology is not only a matter of individual competence but entails the attitudes, expectations, prejudices and ideals of the societies and cultures in which they develop and grow old (see also Coleman & O’Hanlon, 2004). Older persons differ in terms of their preferences and attitudes in their adaptation to and adoption of new technologies. Those working with older adults must therefore account for a wide range of physical and cognitive abilities and tailor (study) design and participant protection to account for that variance.

Certain “leverage points” are however, relevant within older end-users and in the technology environment (Menec et al., 2011, p. 486). To support such an (older) person and technology/environment fit we propose: formal intergenerational programmes, supportive younger people acting as facilitators, and a bottom-up approach to design technologies fit for older communities’ consumption and needs.

With its pledge to leave no one behind and “to reach the furthest behind first”, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN, 2015; UNDP, 2018, p. 1) is centred in the ideals of inclusion of all nations, peoples and segments of society in economic, social and environmental progress. Ensuring that the SDGs are met for all segments of society means that all ages—including older persons, and with particular focus on the most vulnerable—should be minded. While it is necessary to address the intersectional discrimination against many older persons and their exclusion from eInclusion initiatives, we believe that it is imperative to go beyond treating older persons just as a vulnerable group. To achieve truly transformative, inclusive and sustainable outcomes for older persons, they must be recognized not only as beneficiaries of, but also as active agents and beneficiaries in societal development through the extraordinary opportunities offered by eInclusion.