Older people and the use of ICTs to communicate with children and grandchildren

Abstract

In this research we explore older people’s incentives to use Internet services to communicate with their children and grandchildren, and the factors that make older individuals stop using (or even reject) Internet-mediated communications. We apply the uses and gratifications theory, and the gratification niche of medium concept to understand the way people return to less sophisticated tools of communication once the marginal utility is lost. Our analysis is based on empirical evidence the two authors gathered in a set of case studies. We conducted semi-structured interviews with people aged 60 and over in Barcelona, Romania (Bucharest and rural areas), Toronto, Los Angeles, Montevideo, and Lima. The results show that communicating with children and grandchildren when families get separated is an important motivator that “pushes” the elderly to learn more about the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). We emphasize the fact that once motivation is lost (i.e. when family members are back home) the interest in using a particular technology to communicate is diminished, therefore older people might stop using it. We argue for a more dynamic model of technology appropriation for this age group that includes successive stages: ignoring, appropriation, rejection, and re-appropriation.

Keywords:

• Older people use of ICT
• motivation in using ICT
• mediated communication for older people
• grandparents-grandchildren communication
• uses and gratifications theory

Acknowledgments

We thank the participants for their generosity and the reviewers for their enriching feedback. The work of the first author was supported by the UEFISCDI, under Grant PN- II- RU -TE-2014-4- 0429. The paper benefited from ACM Research Network and ACT Project (SSHRC refs. 890-2010-0138, 895-2013-1018).