New publication on "Ageing and Technology"

This publication is dedicated to the widely debated issue of "Ageing and Technology" focusing on old agers as technology users, assistive technologies, and policy making and discourses of ageing.

The remarkable increase of the senior population has become a social phenomenon and a societal challenge. Technological advances have undoubtedly contributed to improve the lives of elderly citizens in numerous aspects. In current debates on technology, however, the "human factor" is often largely ignored. The ageing individual is rather seen as a malfunctioning machine whose deficiencies must be diagnosed and whose limitations have to be overcome by means of technological devices.

This book aims at focusing on the perspective of human beings needing and using assistive technologies. This change of perspective – taking the human being and not technology first – may help to become more sensitive to the ambivalences involved in the interaction between humans and technology, and may be supportive when adapting technologies to the senior citizens’ needs, thus contributing to improve their quality of life. (02.02.2016)

Bibliographic data:

Domínguez-Rué, E.; Nierling, L.
Ageing and Technology. Perspectives from the Social Sciences. Bielefeld: transcript, 2016