Older adults experiencing and balancing the ambivalences of digitalisation in everyday life: Media repertoires as resources in domesticating emerging technologies

Older adults have been found to conceive digital technologies as both helpful and problematic in their everyday lives. Based on a qualitative analysis of diaries and interviews with 40 older Finnish adults, this study identifies efforts they engage in to balance this ambivalence. I approach such bal...

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Main Author: Lehtinen Vilma
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Sciendo 2023-01-01
Series:Nordicom Review
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2023-0007
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author Lehtinen Vilma
author_facet Lehtinen Vilma
author_sort Lehtinen Vilma
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description Older adults have been found to conceive digital technologies as both helpful and problematic in their everyday lives. Based on a qualitative analysis of diaries and interviews with 40 older Finnish adults, this study identifies efforts they engage in to balance this ambivalence. I approach such balancing practices through the theoretical lens of domestication: the process of integrating technologies into everyday life. By combining the concept of media repertoire with the domestication approach, the findings illustrate how ageing individuals take advantage of their media repertoires in the process of making digitalised societies liveable. In order to include ageing individuals in societies that increasingly demand engagement with emerging technologies, then, means that services should be designed in ways that allow them to be integrated into older adults’ media repertoires that have been being formed for decades.
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spelling doaj.art-041170250973495f9f39f785bb9ac1e32023-06-12T06:33:07ZengSciendoNordicom Review2001-51192023-01-0144112314110.2478/nor-2023-0007Older adults experiencing and balancing the ambivalences of digitalisation in everyday life: Media repertoires as resources in domesticating emerging technologiesLehtinen Vilma0Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences, Tampere University, TampereFinlandOlder adults have been found to conceive digital technologies as both helpful and problematic in their everyday lives. Based on a qualitative analysis of diaries and interviews with 40 older Finnish adults, this study identifies efforts they engage in to balance this ambivalence. I approach such balancing practices through the theoretical lens of domestication: the process of integrating technologies into everyday life. By combining the concept of media repertoire with the domestication approach, the findings illustrate how ageing individuals take advantage of their media repertoires in the process of making digitalised societies liveable. In order to include ageing individuals in societies that increasingly demand engagement with emerging technologies, then, means that services should be designed in ways that allow them to be integrated into older adults’ media repertoires that have been being formed for decades.https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2023-0007older adultsdigitalisationdomesticationmedia repertoiresdigital technologies
spellingShingle Lehtinen Vilma
Older adults experiencing and balancing the ambivalences of digitalisation in everyday life: Media repertoires as resources in domesticating emerging technologies
Nordicom Review
older adults
digitalisation
domestication
media repertoires
digital technologies
title Older adults experiencing and balancing the ambivalences of digitalisation in everyday life: Media repertoires as resources in domesticating emerging technologies
title_full Older adults experiencing and balancing the ambivalences of digitalisation in everyday life: Media repertoires as resources in domesticating emerging technologies
title_fullStr Older adults experiencing and balancing the ambivalences of digitalisation in everyday life: Media repertoires as resources in domesticating emerging technologies
title_full_unstemmed Older adults experiencing and balancing the ambivalences of digitalisation in everyday life: Media repertoires as resources in domesticating emerging technologies
title_short Older adults experiencing and balancing the ambivalences of digitalisation in everyday life: Media repertoires as resources in domesticating emerging technologies
title_sort older adults experiencing and balancing the ambivalences of digitalisation in everyday life media repertoires as resources in domesticating emerging technologies
topic older adults
digitalisation
domestication
media repertoires
digital technologies
url https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2023-0007
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