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Updated: May 14, 2026

Methodology for Establishing a Community-Wide Life Laboratory for Capturing Unobtrusive and Continuous Remote Activity and Health Data
Published on: July 27, 2018
The digital life history project: intergenerational collaborative research
1Departments of Sociology and Anthropology, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, USA. mloe@colgate.edu
Abstract:
This article describes the Digital Life History Project, a 10-week "lab" linked to a course on aging, in which students and community-dwelling elders work together to create a short digital story honoring the elder's life. After two interview sessions, the pair works together to produce a 3- to 5-minute digital life story narrated by the elder. The resulting multimedia videos are then screened for the community at large at the end of the semester. Students and elders alike report long-term personal, interpersonal, and community-based effects from participating in the Digital Life History Project, including making meaningful relationships, linking biography and history, learning to confront ageism, charting the next chapter, and participating in community-wide education.
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