ICT, always a good idea?

Setting

For some time now, the Flemish authorities have been arguing in favour of a clever use of ICT with senior citizens. The main focus is on the possible applications in (health) care. However, ICT for elderly people is not necessarily limited to those health- and services-related applications. ‘Active ageing’ can as well refer to the ambition to keep participating in the social, economic, cultural, spiritual, and political life. The project ‘ICT, always a good idea?’ explores possible ICT applications from a wide point of view: not only from the (health) care perspective but also with respect to an optimization of the life quality of senior citizens in general.
However, the Flemish senior citizens constitute a very heterogeneous group with strongly varying needs. Moreover, they may have very diverging opinions about the appropriate ways to fulfil their needs. That aspect too is taken into account in this IST project by asking the question of freedom of choice. Take online banking: unmistakably an ICT opportunity, but sooner or later becoming an ICT constraint too, as alternatives will gradually disappear.

Planning: 4 steps.
The project encompasses 4 steps. The first step is meant to provide a ‘map’ of future visions. Which kind of future visions participants usually foster? For which situations are they intended? Which (types of) senior citizens figure in those visions? Which ‘regions on the map’ remain un(der)exploited and where do applications jostle one another?
During a second step (Spring 2011) the team will inventory a first list of sticking points: which reasons or causes do stakeholder groups see for the fact that offer and demand not always match the way they should?
The third step (September-October 2011) will explore the expectations and preferences of (future) seniors. How differently do elders react to a selection of possible ICT applications.
In a fourth and last step, the results of the first three steps will be converted into a series of recommendations that might contribute to nourish the future debate and policy framework on senior citizens and ICT in Flanders. The objective, upon completion of the project, is to present the results during a public activity (Spring 2012), as part of the European Year of Active Ageing and Intergenerational Solidarity.

Project leader: Marian Deblonde