The Loneliness among the elderly and young people, can help be found in networks
Author(s): Marianne Silvan-Lempinen
Friday 16 | 13:20-13:40
Room: TP51
Session: Health inequalities
The world is full of different options, so why is loneliness and being left outside of social networks still increasing among both the elderly and the young?
Unlike analog or face-to-face networking, digital networking is independent of time and place. Social media and various digital networking platforms make it possible to utilize global networks practically around the clock. Social networking in a digital social environment is not only the right thing for young people but also older people are seen to benefit of the opportunity to engage in a network as well, even regardless of their IT skills. The idea is, network could help create a safe, location-independent communities easy to join in.
To properly tackle the information technology deficiencies of the elderly, networking could be carried out either from outside the individual or with speech recognition. In this way, everyone regardless of their IT-skills would have access to different communities.
On the social care side, virtual home care has already developed to support the social relationships of the elderly and strengthen their activity and ability to function. In addition to this, each customer gets additional protection in situations of changes in functional capacity, and in addition to this, the state of health can be monitored, and instructions can be given in daily activities, for example reminding about meals or organizing remote group activities. Could we make use of the already ready platform to implement mutual communication between the elderly as well?
Our presentation will discuss the attempts to overcome the digital gap as well as their limits, on the basis of a pilot study and a research plan.