Ageing with Information and Communication Technologies in the 21st century - preface

Abstract

This special issue addresses two important defining features of today’s society: ageing and digital technologies. In the 21st century, ageing has become one of the most significant social transformations [27], as an increase in the ageing population is changing much of the world and has become visibly real in many societies. Population ageing is occurring in a digital world, wherein Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are playing a pivotal role in multiple facets of everyday life. Thus, it is timely to better understand how these technologies may enrich ageing (and living) in the early 21st century, as well as to ask what we may learn about our increasing dependency on ICTs, if looked at from the purview of age and ageing. The aim of this interdisciplinary special issue is to bring together a selection of papers that contribute to the aforementioned goal. The editors of this special issue come from three different areas: Human-Computer Interaction, Communication and Media Studies, and Education. Despite the growing amount of research in these (and other) areas on ageing and digital technologies, we argue that there is still much work to do on the relationship between older people and ICTs.