Andrea Rosales and Mireia Fernández-Ardèvol coauthor the book chapter titled “Smartphone usage diversity among older people” in the volume edited by Sergio Sayago and published by Springer, “Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction Research with Older People.” In this paper, the authors provide evidence of the varying levels of smartphone usage skills among older people in Spain, which span from basic to advanced. Their results provide further evidence that counters prevailing ageist stereotypes of older people’s digital skills and raise concerns on its deployment in the design processes of intelligent technologies.
Abstract: Older people are a minority in digital media, in terms of both access and use. While the divide in access has decreased, this is not the case with the divide in use. In this chapter, we go deeper into the divide in use, by studying the diversity of smartphone usage among older people. We have used three complementary perspectives: tracked use, reported use, and reflections on use. According to our study, between 2014 and 2016 the divide in smartphone use increased between younger individuals and older people. Moreover, older smartphone users in Spain are a diverse user group, which includes basic, proficient and advanced users. Proficient users are the most common group. Basic users are often new users with little experience of digital technologies who usually achieve their communication goals by other means. We used a triangulation of qualitative and quantitative methods. This approach allowed us to show the limited and at the same time diverse use of smartphones by older people. These results question the stereotypes that only associate older people with
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