Technology anxiety and technology enthusiasm versus digital ageism
Jessica Berner PhD*, Ana Luiza Dallora PhD, Johan Sanmartin Berglund MD PhD, Peter Anderberg PhD
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AbstractBackground: Europe has called attention to the importance of the e-inclusion of older adults. Society is indicating that the developers, websites, and devices are causing age bias in technology. This affects living independently, the values of ethical principles associated with an older person, and digital ageism: which is an age-related bias in artificial intelligence systems.
Objective: This research attempts to investigate the instrument technology anxiety and enthusiasm, and assistive technology devices during the period 2019- 2021. This instrument may be a way to redress misconceptions about digital ageism. The assistive technology device that we will investigate in this study is the adoption of a service that is designed for online health consultations.
Method: The participants are part of the longitudinal Swedish National Study on Aging and Care. Technology anxiety and technology enthusiasm are two factors, which aim to measure technophilia (vs technophobia) in older adults. The age range is 63 -99 years of age in 2019 T1 and 66 -101 in 2021 T2. Wilcoxon rank test was conducted to investigate technology enthusiasm, technology anxiety, and how they changed with time. An Edwards Nunnally index was then calculated for both variables to observe a significant change in score from T1 to T2. Mann Whitney U test was used to investigate the variables sex and health status with technology anxiety & technology enthusiasm in T1 & T2. Age, Cognitive function MMSE, and digital social participation were investigated through a Kruskall-Wallis test. A logistic regression was conducted with the significant variable.
Results: Between 2019-2021, change in technology enthusiasm was based on less digital social participation (OR: 0.608; CI 95%: 0.476- 0.792). Technology anxiety was significantly higher due to age (OR: 1.086, CI 95%: 1.035-1.139) and less digital social participation (OR: 0.684; CI 95%: 0.522- 0.895). The want for online healthcare consultations was popular but usage was low.
Conclusion: Staying active on- line and participating digitally may be a way to reduce digital ageism. However, digital ageism is a complex phenomenon, which requires different solutions in order to include older people and reduce an inaccurate categorisation of this group in the digital society.Keywords: technology anxiety, technology enthusiasm, digital ageism, artificial intelligence, older adults
Jessica Berner PhD*, Ana Luiza Dallora PhD, Johan Sanmartin Berglund MD PhD, Peter Anderberg PhD (2022). Technology anxiety and technology enthusiasm versus digital ageism. Gerontechnology, 21(1), 1-8
https://doi.org/10.4017/gt.2023.21.1.813.02