A Social TV System for the Senior Community: Stimulating Elderly Communication Using Information and Communications Technology

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to stimulate communication among the elderly population of Japan (where more than 21% of the population is aged 65 years and above) and to find ways to use their knowledge and labor skills with the aid of information and communications technology. Toward this end, we launched a joint research project called "Senior Cloud" in which we developed a prototype of a social TV system for the elderly. The first phase of the research project included a threemonth field trial using the system in a local senior community. In this paper, we analyze the system log (posting and operational data) and the responses to questionnaires administered to obtain user impressions. These data reveal certain characteristics of communication among the elderly and methods that can stimulate it.

How and Why Users Use Social TV Systems? A Systematic Review of User Studies

“…Only one study in Japan [16] represented Asia. As there are few published studies from other regions, there is a need for careful generalization of research findings.…”

“…Specifically, five studies were published by authors from the industry (i.e. Motorola Labs [12,18,19], Motorola Mobility [14] and NHK [16]) followed by four studies from universities [8,11,15,20] and one study from an independent research center (i.e. FTW [17]).…”

“…Social TV user studies were mostly conducted in the field [11,12,14,16,18,19] than inside a laboratory [8,15,17,20]. Specifically, studies that were conducted in the field had participants that used social TV in their respective households.…”

“…Following Petry's age classification scheme [13], most of the studies had participants that were young adults (aged 35 years and below; n = 8) followed by middle-age adults (aged 36-55 years; n = 5) and older adults (56 years and above; n = 2). Of these studies, some had participants that belong to two or more age groups [7,14] while some focused in a single age group like young adults [8,15] or older adults [16]. Only one study [12] did not specify the age range of their participants.…”

Communicating public and social services through iTV: Promoting older adults’ quality of life

“…Second screens may be used for extending iTV platform functionalities. Thus, Miyazaki et al (2013) created the "Senior Cloud", a service to stimulate communication among the older adults in Japan. In this iTV service, older adults could watch TV shows virtually together by chatting with the use of tablets and smartphones connected to the iTV platform.…”