Old age and new technologies: the elderly experiences in the appropriation and usage of internet

• Grant number: 15/06556-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2015
• End date: February 28, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Social Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Mariele Rodrigues Correa
• Grantee: Bruna Giovanna Buesso da Silva
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL-ASSIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Assis. Assis , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 15/25396-0 - Ownership and new technologies application in portuguese elderly of a senior university, BE.EP.IC

Abstract

The increase in life expectancy of the Brazilian population is a relatively recent phenomenon and this event has attracted the interest of several areas of knowledge, since population aging poses some challenges like, for example, how to insert the elderly in modern technologies, especially those related to computers and the Internet. Some projects and programs for the age group over 60 years old provide the contact of the elderly with these tools. Among them, we mention the Open Universities of the Third Age (UNATIs), specifically the project developed by Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho (UNESP), campus of Assis. The UNATI is characterized as a program that develops activities for the elderly aimed at leisure, new knowledge and social life. In this research, we are interested in investigating the elderly who attend the course of Advanced Computing in order to understand the meanings they atribute to the use of computers, the internet and new technologies. For this purpose, a qualitative research will be carried out with semi-open interviews among fifteen participants in a group of the course of "advanced computing" offered by the UNATI of Assis. The previously prepared questionnaire will include questions that intend to characterize the group profile to be studied, as well as issues related to computer using, social networks and others. To analyze the results, the content analysis method will be used, as proposed by Bardin (2009).