Is digital acceleration a threat to our older interlocutors? To what extent does being insecure about contemporary digital tools affect people’s everyday lives? Or is this insecurity caused by a distorted perception, by the Western cultural model of “active aging”?

The so-called “active aging” model aims to maintain autonomy in old age as long as possible through adopting an active and healthy lifestyle after retirement. Active aging was originally born in the context of population aging in Western countries to enhance the social participation of older persons and fight against prejudices and social discrimination based on age (Walker 2002). Nevertheless, in many countries, public and political discourse has often promoted a normative model of “active,” “healthy,” or “successful” aging which negatively portrays human fragility and aging while, at the same time, ignoring how social inequalities influence the way people can effectively age actively and healthily (Lamb 2017). In this context, gerontologists and technology experts promote the diffusion of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) among the older population to enhance active aging (Bonifacio 2021). This narrative, which points to the urgency of reducing the digital divide among the aging population in the context of digital acceleration, also puts a positivistic emphasis on technology as a solution for contemporary social problems (Bonifacio 2021; Carlo and Bonifacio 2021). As other scholars highlight, this approach “provides poor heuristic devices for investigating how digital technologies affect, change, hinder and sustain the life experienced in old age and its perception” (Carlo and Bonifacio 2021, 461).

I am an anthropologist with an interest in aging and elderly care. When I began exploring the issue of digital acceleration among aging populations in my postdoctoral fieldwork, I had mixed feelings about the relationship between aging and digitalization: was it necessary to recognize the lack of digital competencies among older adults as a gap that must be reduced, or should I, on the contrary, deconstruct this “necessity” and show how it originated from a dominant and individualistic discourse on active aging? In this essay, I do not simply argue for a more balanced view on this issue, one that still acknowledges “active aging” as a normative model without neglecting the need to enhance older adults’ capability to participate in a digitalized world. Rather, I move from the previous suggestion on how a positivistic vision of technologies proved to be a poor heuristic device for understanding how digitalization affects  older adults’ experiences of life in old age (Bonifacio 2021, 461). I argue that it is possible to go beyond a simplistic and dichotomous view of the debate about aging and digitalization by analyzing the active aging model as a multi-vocal—and not necessarily coherent—set of social representations and discourses. Indeed, this term is often used to identify with a single epistemic category a complex entanglement of narratives on old age, active life, happiness, well-being, community, and family.

This essay is based on The Longitudinal Study on Older People’s Quality of Life During the Covid-19 Pandemic (ILQA-19), a qualitative study that has been carried out remotely since 2020 on 40 men and women aged 65-75 living in ten villages in northern Italy that were subject to the first lockdown in Europe. The main purposes of the project are twofold: first, to understand the consequences of the pandemic on older adults’ everyday lives; second, to explore the conditions in which digital acceleration can effectively promote active aging or become a vehicle of social marginalization among older adults. I draw on a wave of interviews I conducted between 2023 and 2024 to address a research question: How do living environments and normative models of active adults affect older adults’ perceptions of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)?

A workshop on everyday objects before digitalization. Photo taken from Ageing Societies Facebook page.

Italy is one of the EU countries with the lowest internet usage rate and the highest rate of population aging (Carlo 2017). Quantitative and qualitative studies have shown how gender, age, and socio-economic inequalities affect older adults’ access and usage of ICTs: wealthier men, aged between 65-69 years and who were introduced to computers during their working career, are more likely to become competent ICTs users (Carlo 2017; Colombo et al. 2023).

Most of my interlocutors are wealthy and retired people in their 60s or 70s. Many of them take on care work within the family: they often go to pick up their grandchildren from school, make lunch, and help them with their homework. Almost all volunteer in non-profit organizations that promote socialization and solidarity among older adults. I use pseudonyms for all of my interlocutors.

Donatela is a 75-year-old woman and a retired elementary school teacher. She proudly told me that she taught herself how to use the computer when she worked as the secretary for a school principal, without attending any training. Every morning, she reads the news on her phone and social media. Then, she sends to her friends articles and fragments of her thoughts on WhatsApp. Donatela began this ritual during the pandemic, and she is convinced that her smartphone and computer helped her survive the recent loss of her husband and the sense of loneliness that it brought into her life:

I needed the computer, so I learned it on my own! But the most important thing is being willing to learn. People say they are not interested in learning how to use the PC…these people refuse to learn, do you understand? Some of my friends simply don’t want to do it. They just want to live the way they are used to. Instead, if you approach these new technologies, they give you a hand.

It is common for enthusiasts like Donatela to consider their technology-averse peers as traditionalist and close-minded, or as unable to discover the potential of life through their smartphones. And yet, not all my interlocutors showed such boundless optimism toward smartphones and digital tools. Many seemed to have ambivalent feelings toward them. Piero, who uses several apps, a smartwatch, and even assists his peers with online payments or wire transfers, fears digital acceleration: “Yes, there is such a thing as too much technology,” he told me. “At some point, we will all need someone younger to lend us a hand, as we do for others now. It could happen to me in a few years; if technology evolves, I will need my children to assist me too.”     

The current research Team with some members from the local not-for-profit associations that sustain the project. Photo taken from Ageing Societies Facebook page.

Indeed, older adults may experience their lack of digital skills as a burden for the younger generations and a personal failure due to social expectations about active aging (Duque and Otaegui 2023). Children may show impatience when assisting their parents with their smartphones. Digital dependency is, thus, a delicate shift of authority from older to younger generations and can easily convey a sense that the path of reciprocity among generations is broken (Duque and Otaegui 2023, 35; Miller et al. 2021). Some of my interlocutors with poor digital skills complained about asking their children to manage everyday digital operations to satisfy their needs. They considered digitalization a threat to their independence and the inability to use modern tools distanced themselves from active ageing ideals. For example, Lisa,  72 years old, reflected on how many parents, especially people aged 80 or more, feel as though they are at the mercy of their children with the digitalization of many services:

They must do what their children say. They must depend. If the children believe it is fine to book a medical visit, they book it for them. They don’t read the exam results. At least, they look at them, but the children oversee everything. It is unfair because it’s true that you don’t know how to do it, but that’s your business, right? Why should your children decide for you?

However, I also found that many individuals who reported possessing good digital skills still rely on their children for what they consider to be the riskiest tasks, such as verifying their digital identity or making online payments. They did not experience their insecurities as a burden for their children or a threat to their independence and social status within the family. For example, Piero, a 68-year-old man who as a former athlete has been using smartwatches since the 90s, seems to not worry about asking his son for help with digital tools:

What I can do, I do. If I can’t do it, it is not hard for me to ask for help. I put myself in the shoes of those who have problems with technology; it’s not a humiliation, on the contrary, I see it as a positive thing that there is someone who can give me a hand. It doesn’t cost me to ask my son for help with a wire transfer. 

Furthermore, while older adults are expected to partake in social media such as Facebook, Google, and YouTube, unsurprisingly, they could be anxious about other digital tools, such as accessing online public services and making online payments, or just perceive these activities as something that they do not need to handle by themselves. Indeed, as I already mentioned, other activities, such as volunteering, are locally perceived as more related to remaining socially involved and mentally active than digital technologies. While generally appreciating reading the news or checking information on Google, my interlocutors reported having mixed feelings about digital technologies and digitalization. Therefore, writing about rigid and static expectations of active aging does not allow us to capture a complex reality, where even individual resistance to digital technologies does not necessarily mean a complete rejection of socially shared models of digital consumption for older adults.

This is the case of Lucrezia, a 69-year-old woman who volunteers in a local nursing home. She told was afraid of using digital technologies due to  the possibility  of fraud, or simply because she might make a mistake. When she was younger, she worked as a secretary for an important legal department. She was a good typist but did not experience the arrival of computers because she quit some years before they started to appear. Lucrezia prefers to consult a local office for help rather than learning to navigate online bureaucratic procedures on her smartphone. She doesn’t trust  online payment systems or her capacity to handle them. She frequently asks her sons or husband to insert their credit card numbers.  “I use a smartphone,” she told me, “but I don’t know how to use a computer, even though my husband and my son tell me: ‘We’ll teach you, we’ll teach you.’ But I’m afraid,” she laughs. Indeed, she uses her mobile phone to cultivate her main hobby: travelling. She regularly visits Wikipedia and travel guides through her smartphone and is subscribed to many Facebook groups on cities, tourism, and cultural activities. Therefore, she is well-informed about the exhibitions, cultural events, and open museums nearby. 

The digital acceleration has, indeed, reinforced social stratification among the most vulnerable social groups who often lack digital competencies. Individuals who already lacked this competence before the pandemic are now unable to navigate the digital world without assistance or proper training (Carlo and Nanetti 2024). However, it is interesting to note that individuals like Lucrezia, despite claiming to feel insecure about digital technologies, use smartphones for hobbies and leisure activities. Her resistance to some ICTs’s usage—like using the computer, making online payments, and accessing digital services—cannot be read as a failure to adapt to digitalization, nor can it be seen as a resistance to modernity and active aging. We need to further understand citizens’ adoption or resistance to these technologies beyond preconceptions about a general mistrust of older adults to digital technology or simplistic critiques of the “active aging” model. As anthropologists, we must witness the multiple ways in which these social actors make sense of their unsettling experiences of technological acceleration—all while maintaining our ethical commitment to study the inequalities that societies produce in uncertain times.

A dissemination activity on digitalization and aging. Photo taken from Ageing Societies Facebook page

Notes  

See https://ageingsocieties.unimib.it/activers2/ for a description of the research goals, the parties involved, and the research team. I wish to thank my colleagues Simone Carlo, Giulia Melis, Sara Nanetti, Daniele Zaccaria, and Emanuela Sala for their precious contribution to the research.

References

Bonifacio, Francesco. 2021.“The relationships between older adults and Icts. A systematic review of qualitative studies.” Studi di Sociologia, 1: 21-38.

Carlo, Simone. 2017. Invecchiare online: sfide e aspettative degli anziani digitali. Milano: Vita e Pensiero.

Carlo, Simone, and Francesco Bonifacio. 2021.“Ageing in rural Italy through digital media. Health and everyday life.” Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, 2: 459-486.

Carlo, Simone, and Sara Nanetti. 2024. “COVID-19 emergency: Boosting digitalization and a missed opportunity for acquiring digital literacy in the old population.” Social Theory, Empirics, Policy and Practice, 28: 54-70.

Colombo, Fausto, Piermarco Airoldi, and Simone Carlo. 2015. “New Elders, Old Divides: ICTs, Inequalities and Well-Being amongst Young Elderly Italians.” Communicar 45: 47-55. 

Danely, Jason. 2014. Aging and Loss: Mourning and Maturity in Contemporary Japan. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Duque, Marília, and Alfonso Otaegui. “Digital Dependency as a Burden: Impact of Active Aging for Technology Adoption in Brazil and Chile.” Anthropology & Ageing 2 (44): 28-44. 

Lamb, Sarah. 2014.“Permanent Personhood or Meaningful Decline? Toward a Critical Anthropology of Successful Aging.” Journal of Aging Studies 29 : 41–52.  

Miller, Daniel, Laila Abed Rabho, Patrick Awondo, Maya de Vries, Marília Duque, Pauline Garvey, Laura Haapio-Kirk, Charlotte Hawkins, Alfonso Otaegui, Shireen Walton, and Xinyuan Wang. 2021. The Global Smartphone. Beyond a Youth Technology. London: UCL Press.

Walker, Alan. 2023.“A strategy for active ageing.” International Social Security Review, 55: 121–139.

Francesco Diodati is an anthropologist and a postdoctoral researcher at the Catholic University of Milan. He is author of several ethnographic articles on elder care work, family caregiver’s fatigue, and on the social representations of aging in the pandemic context. His current postdoctoral research project investigates how contemporary digital acceleration affects population aging in Italy.  He is the co-convenor of the Age and Generation network (Agenet) of EASA. He is a member of the Italian interdisciplinary research group Aging Societies, which studies the increasingly important role of digital technologies in contemporary aging societies.

Cite as: Diodati, Francesco. 2024. “The contradictions of “Active Aging”: Older Digital Users in Post-Pandemic Italy.” In “Aging Globally: Challenges and Possibilities of Growing Old in an Unsettling Era,” edited by Magdalena Zegarra Chiappori, American Ethnologist website, 7 August 2024. [https://americanethnologist.org/online-content/collections/aging-globally/the-contradictions-of-active-aging-older-digital-users-in-post-pandemic-italyby-francesco-diodati/]