ICTs and active aging processes: a broken promise?

Abstract

The impact of the new information and communication technologies (ICTs) has yet to be measured and accurately defined. They are undoubtedly having increasing impact in growing areas of telematic networks and an increasingly controlled social network. Between the optimism and pessimism of the discourse related to these tools, there has been scanty in-depth consideration or solid studies to enable us to understand how they emerge, are applied and, developed or the outcomes. In the context of the elderly, either by analogy with other age groups or for their potential, among other reasons, there are growing calls for more frequent use of ICTs. This work explore the relationships that exist between the elderly and ICTs based on the slogan launched in 2002 on “active ageing”, a notion or expression linked in Europe and America to promises of a political, social, economic and cultural nature and therefore the promoter of improved quality of life for people who grow old in advanced and developing societies that change and transform in ways that multiply their fears, risk of exclusion and insecurities. Nour exploration of analytical and empirical support tries to verify if such a promise is objectively fulfilled or whether, on the contrary, it forms part of the rhetoric of the use or political discourses of a populist and electoralist nature. empirical, tries to verify if such a promise is fulfilled objectively or if it forms part of the rhetoric to the use or of the political speeches of populist and electoralist character.