Everyday Meaning of Neighboring in Old Age in an Urban District

Smartphone use by older people in German-speaking countries: A qualitative systematic literature review

“…Classic "cell" phones without touchscreen and with keypad input are still being sold in German-speaking countries. (Seifert et al, 2020;Tenzer, 2022). It is also apparent that the network infrastructure is not as well developed as in other countries.…”

“…Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have been discussing and focusing on the topic of digital inclusion since 2014, including the keyword digital ambassador for elderly. The Digital Ambassador aims to narrow the digital divide between older and younger people and empower older people (Amann-Hechenberger et al, 2015;Seifert et al, 2020;Streim). In addition, innovations often take longer due to legal requirements such as the German Data Protection Act (DSGVO) in Germany and Austria and the German Data Protection Act (DSG) in Switzerland instead of countries without these legal requirements (Grube et al, 2020;Sury, 2020).…”

“…Gerontological studies only included smartphone use by older people and did not focus on it. Nevertheless, a recent study found that it is described that "the smartphone [...] has become an important everyday mobile device for information search and communication recently" (Seifert et al, 2020).…”

“…Several recent studies have shown that the smartphone can be used as the control center of the smart home to turn the lights on and off, control the garden irrigation, open the door, and display the surveillance cameras. In addition, the integrated GPS can be used as a navigation device, and a means of transport such as a car, cab, or e-scooter can be hired thanks to an app (Berner et al, 2020;Bundesamt für Statistik, 2022;Deil, 2020;Eurostat, 2022;Seifert et al, 2020).…”

“…The smartphone often acts as a gatekeeper for setting up and using additional health monitoring devices such as wearables or medical measuring devices (Hsieh et al, 2019). Current research suggests that the smartphone partly takes over information retrieval tasks for which only the computer was available a few years ago (Seifert et al, 2020).…”