Doing digital exclusion - technology practices of older internet non-users

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Sociology of Technology
• Digital Inclusion Studies

Background:

• Gerontological studies often frame technology engagement in later life using binary
• use
• vs.
• non-use
• categories, which may oversimplify complex realities.
• Recent scholarship questions these dichotomous views, advocating for more nuanced understandings of technology interaction.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore technology use and non-use in later life not as dichotomous counterparts, but as routine, everyday experiences.
• To identify technology practices beyond simple usage or non-usage among older adults who self-identify as non-users.
• To examine how these practices relate to older adults' experiences of age and aging.

Main Methods:

• Praxeological approach to analyze technology engagement.
• Conducted 15 semi-structured interviews with older adults (65+) in Austria who self-identify as non-users of digital technologies.
• Thematic coding analysis (Flick, 2016) was applied to interview data.

Main Results:

• Despite self-identifying as
• non-users
• , all interviewees regularly engaged with digital technologies in their daily lives.
• Four bundles of technology practices were identified: avoidance, usage, appropriation, and subjectivation practices.
• Older adults actively transitioned between these practice bundles, indicating ambivalent, everyday experiences rather than fixed patterns.

Conclusions:

• Technology use and non-use in later life are not binary but ambivalent, everyday experiences involving a spectrum of practices.
• Older adults' engagement with technology is an active process negotiated through avoidance, usage, and appropriation, challenging rational decision-making models.
• Future research should move beyond binary concepts of use/non-use to investigate valued and devalued practices in older adults' technology engagement.