We all have an older family member whom we’ve tried - and failed - to persuade to use aids, from walking sticks to hearing aids, that we think would make their lives easier.
When they live further away from us, or more remotely, offering support can be hard and it’s becoming an increasing issue. The number of people living alone aged over 65 is expected to increase 18% by 2028 and 42% by 2043, to nearly 500,000 people.
For Scotland’s rural areas, where a larger proportion of people are aged over 45, and especially over 65, it’s more acute.
Could smart or assistive devices - from voice assistants like Alexa and smart televisions, to medical aids - be the answer? Are they a route to greater independence? Or could they make older people feel like they’re under constant surveillance?
It’s both, according to research I’ve completed as part of my PhD (co-supervised between The James Hutton Institute and University of St Andrews). I spent time with a group of older people in rural Scotland and their care networks to see how smart tech was working out - or not - for them, from voice recognition devices to smart medical aids.
On the one hand, I found feelings of imprisonment by new digital tech, as well as surveillance, making them change their behaviour or hide accidents, while their children used Facebook to covertly check up on them. On the other, it helped increase independence, communication and access to entertainment, like Netflix, and eased pressure on support networks.
For some, smart devices, from voice assistants to fall alarms, help people feel like they are being helpful to their care networks or reducing their dependence on others. But it could also mean hiding their difficulties from these devices, making them pretend or act like they were fine, so carers didn’t worry.
For the carers, while smart devices can help those they want to support and reduce how much support is needed, there can be a flip side, leading to more help fixing devices.
It can be complex. We specifically looked at how people change their behaviour in different circumstances: for example, when they know they’re being watched.
And this happens when people feel like they’re being watched in their homes by these devices.
One way of looking at this is that digital home devices are reducing their privacy. This was, at least initially, accepted by many of our older participants, apparently due to resulting opportunities for independence.
But it’s something we should keep an eye on. Older people are already navigating the health declines of older age and pressures from their caring networks and society to behave in a particular way. While they maybe willing to “put up with” more devices, in order to stay at home for longer, a sense of increased monitoring could make their homes feel more like the care homes they are trying to avoid.
Rachel Creaney is a researcher with The James Hutton Institute. Her research was published in the Journal of Aging Studies and can be found here).
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