It's time seniors had technology tailored to them

Simple computers are needed, Alexa Ruel explains.

Why are we still asking our seniors to learn how to use current technology when there is an easier and better solution?

Our society is on track to support our seniors' physical health, but we are failing to ensure they remain socially included. In 2010, up to 16 per cent of Canadian seniors are estimated to have experienced social isolation. By 2030, seniors could make up as much as a quarter of our population. Without technology tailored to our seniors, we will be leaving a considerable proportion of older adults behind and at risk of social isolation.

Part of the problem is current technological barriers and the difficulty seniors have overcoming them.

While many seniors are adept at using technology to stay in touch with family and friends and to travel independently, the issue remains a huge hurdle for those who are not. For these seniors, our solution has been to teach them how to use technology to allow them to remain connected through social media and video conferencing and to travel autonomously using public transit.

The problem is, recent research on learning and decision-making in older adults reveals they might struggle to successfully engage with current technology beyond a certain age, even if we try to teach them. My own work suggests this might be due to difficulties representing “partially observable structures,” which are at the core of most information and communication technologies.

To illustrate this, think of a self-serve ticket vending machine. To buy the correct ticket, you must navigate through a series of menus, each one only observable once you have made a choice among the options on the previous menu. After this, you need to successfully interact with a different screen to pay for your ticket.

You need to make a series of goal-directed decisions without fully knowing how each menu leads to the next.

In other words, you need to make a series of goal-directed decisions without fully knowing how each menu leads to the next.

While younger people typically navigate through these kinds of partially observable structures (menus) with ease, seniors tend to struggle to do so. In the lab, they even show limitations when further incentivized, when the structures are made easier to represent and when they are first taught how to engage with the system.

While many older adults are willing and eager to learn new technology — especially products that could help them maintain their independence and quality of life — some may simply not be able to engage with our current technology, possibly leaving them frustrated and socially isolated.

We need to adapt our technology to our seniors rather than try to get our seniors to adapt to our technology.

While a few companies have started creating computers that are tailored to the needs of older adults that also consider their abilities and limitations, this technology is not yet readily available to seniors in North America. For example, No Isolation, a recent startup in Norway, aims to reduce loneliness and social isolation by developing computers such as KOMP — a one-button computer for social communication for seniors who struggle to use current technologies.

We already have the technological advancements necessary to create much more complex technologies than the ones our seniors desperately need: simple computers without complex, nested menus.

Now is the time to bridge the gap between our seniors, who struggle to use modern-day technology, and their more tech-savvy family and friends. If we want our seniors to stay integrated in our rapidly changing society, we need to do better — much better.