The firekeepers: aging considered as a resource

Abstract

Technology can improve the quality of life for elderly persons by supporting and facilitating the unique leadership roles that elderly play in groups, communities, and other organizations. Elderly people are often organizational firekeepers. They maintain community memory, pass on organizational practices, and ensure social continuity. This paper reports studies of several essential community roles played by elderly community members-including the role of volunteer community webmaster-and describes two positive design projects that investigated how technology can support new kinds of social endeavors and contributions to society by elderly citizens. Finally, the paper speculates on the utility of intergenerational teams in strengthening society's workforce.

Ubiquitous technologies for older people

“…Results from the PUC review reflects recent considerations about research on elderly people in general [31], and design in particular [14,57,73,79]. Reviewed papers put a strong emphasis on the functional paradigm, which substantially affected the narrative about users and contexts.…”

“…This opinion has been underlying ageing policies in North America and Europe over the last decades [6], inspiring a ''rhetoric of compassion'' [14] which emphasises the need for inclusion of, and equal opportunities for older people. In Europe, the trend dates back to the early nineties when the European Commission funded a series of initiatives for counteracting the effect of its rapidly ageing population [72,74].…”

“…[29,51]) and a few review articles (e.g. [14,52,73]). Such contributions criticised the recurrent framing in technology research according to which older people are a medical and economic problem [45,79].…”

“…These authors claimed that this framing reflected the rhetoric of compassion associated with a ''deficit-driven design'' [57]. Looking for a different perspective, they introduce the idea of a new ''rhetoric of engagement'' [14] which could lead to a ''positive design'' [57]. Such a view fosters a proactive and integrated approach for counteracting the stereotypical image of older people.…”

“…Such a view fosters a proactive and integrated approach for counteracting the stereotypical image of older people. This change implies a comprehensive and preventive lifelong strategy of age management [14,74].…”