History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
ESA Conference: Ageing Societies, New Sociology
September 23-26, 2003 in Murcia, Spain
Two streams of sessions of the
Research Network 18: Sociology of Science and Technology (SSTNET)
Convenors:
Raymund Werle: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Köln, Germany (werle@mpi-fg-koeln.mpg.de)
Marja Häyrinen Alestalo: Dept. of Sociology, University of Helsinki, Finland (marja.alestalo@helsinki.fi)
Luísa Oliveira: DINÂMIA/ISCTE, Lisboa, Portugal (luisa.oliveira@iscte.pt)
Maarten Mentzel: 38 Johan de Wittstraat, 2334 AR Leiden, The Netherlands (m.a.mentzel@planet.nl)
Second Stream: New Technologies in Ageing Societies
Friday Sept. 26
14.30 - 16.30 session 8 (Campus de La Merced)
Chair Luísa Oliveira
8.2. Author(s): Stegbauer, Christian/Paul, Gerd/Tully, Claus
Institution: Universität Frankfurt (Stegbauer, Christian), SOFI Göttingen (Paul, Gerd), Deutsches Jugendinstitut München (Tully, Claus)
Professional Category:
City: Frankfurt/Göttingen/München
Country: Germany
E-mail: stegbauer@soz.uni-frankfurt.de, gpaul@gwdg.de, tully@dji.de
THE ROLE OF THE INTERNET FOR YOUNG AND ELDERLY PEOPLE
Contrary to the general assumption that the Internet is a domain of young people we hold that the internet is for a growing number of elderly people a strong focus of interest. They are catching up fast. Against the contention that the being a member of the elderly technological generation of people impedes a rapid appropriation of a new technology for the elderly we think that this is not true in the case of internet use for elderly, which gives them more possibilities as consumers and chances for participation. For both groups the internet is a source of informal learning. The young versus old age dichotomy is mitigated by other factors like gender, education and socio-economic status. Elderly people have other usage patterns and other information needs than teenagers, but they have long time been neglected by market research and B2C web offers. To create an internet ghetto with "senior net" sites is a wrong paternalistic strategy which we can find in official documents and business strategies for the "silver market". A neglected fact is the importance of the social network of family members and friends which facilitate the access for the elderly.
The paper focuses on the different requirements for appropriation of the internet and formal and informal learning of the elderly.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006