Senior citizens and the ethics of e-inclusion

Abstract

The ageing society poses significant challenges to Europe's economy and society. In coming to grips with these issues, we must be aware of their ethical dimensions. Values are the heart of the European Union, as Article 1a of the Lisbon Treaty makes clear: ''The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity…''. The notion of Europe as a community of values has various important implications, including the development of inclusion policies. A special case of exclusion concerns the gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it, the ''digital divide'', which in Europe is chiefly age-related. Policies to overcome the digital divide and, more generally speaking, e-inclusion policies addressing the ageing population raise some ethical problems. Among younger senior citizens, say those between 65 and 80 years old, the main issues are likely to be universal access to ICT and e-participation.Among the older senior citizens, say those more than 80 years old, the main issues are mental and physical deterioration and assistive technology. An approach geared towards the protection of human rights could match the different needs of senior citizens and provide concrete guidance to evaluate information technologies for them.

A Review of Contemporary Work on the Ethics of Ambient Assisted Living Technologies for People with Dementia

“…Relatives can have a major impact on PwD's subjective norms for ICT acceptance (Steve Lauriks et al, 2010;Zaad and Ben Allouch, 2008). Training and education also play an important role in ICT acceptance (Mordini et al, 2009;Oppenauer et al, 2007). Authors disagree on the functionalities of ICT devices, with some proposing that they should be reduced (Wallace et al, 2010) and others proposing that they should be extended by providing more alarms and more functions (Zaad and Ben Allouch, 2008).…”

“…Even though the population on our planet is still increasing overall, the birth rate in some countries has decreased to such a level that it has become impossible for them to maintain the sizes of their populations. 2010; Lynch et al, 2009;Mordini et al, 2009;Oppenauer et al, 2007;Remmers, 2010;Salces et al, 2006), which can often only be fulfilled at significant economic, personal, organisational, social and managerial costs (Mandell and Green, 2011).…”

“…Hofmann (2012), discussing surveillance during the beneficial use of monitoring, questions whether it is possible to define a standard of normal daily activities that can be used in relation to welfare technologies. The heterogeneity of the PwD cohort (Gaul and Ziefle, 2009;Grönvall and Kyng, 2012;Kaye, 2010;Lynch et al, 2009;Mordini et al, 2009;Oppenauer et al, 2007;Remmers, 2010;Salces et al, 2006) greatly complicates the differentiation between normal and abnormal ADL. Moreover, it is unclear who should define normal and abnormal ADL (Hofmann, 2012).…”

“…Whilst Katz and Rice characterise the role of communication technology as primarily interaction, this interaction can be negative, for example where people cheat, exploit or hurt each other (Francis et al, 2009). Therefore, education and training from an early age on how to properly use ICT should be emphasised, enhancing the motivation to use, familiarity with and overall acceptance of, the ICT systems (McLean, 2011;Mordini et al, 2009;Oppenauer et al, 2007). This could help address the aforementioned issue of digital divide and social isolation.…”

“…Technical or 'quick' fix, R&D for PwDs as low prestige endeavour: The danger of regarding AAL technologies as 'quick and easy fixes' or a 'technical fix' to grave psycho-social and societal problems is still present (Hofmann, 2012;Mordini et al, 2009). Moreover, researchers see the development of technologies for the elderly as a low-prestige endeavour (Hofmann, 2012) (compared with other technologies, e.g.…”