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Digital Technologies, Ageing and Everyday Life
Digital Technologies, Ageing and Everyday Life
Monday, 11 July 2016: 16:00-17:30
Location: Hörsaal 42 (Main Building)
RC11 Sociology of Aging (host committee) Language: English
The 21st century has been characterised by a proliferation of digital devices, information technologies and mediated systems of communication within global and networked societies. Developments in digital technologies increasingly permeate everyday life and are interwoven with our identities, narratives, social relationships, social networks, lifestyles and societies. Digital technologies are, moreover, having profound influences within the lives of people in mid to later life.
The aim of this session is to critically explore perceptions, experiences and roles that digital devices, information technologies and mediated systems of communication may have in the lives of people as they grow older. This may include wearable technologies, self-monitoring, digital ageism, the “quantified self”, social connectivity, transnational relationships, social networks, communications, digital arts, digital games, participation, surveillance, work and leisure, time and space, the body and embodiment, health and well-being, risk and lifestyles. The session will further consider:
- the opportunities and possibilities that people in mid to later life have to engage with and resist digital technologies in everyday life;
- and how narratives surrounding engagement (or not) with digital technologies both challenge and reinforce ideas about ageing (and youth) in complex and, at times, contradictory ways.
For this session we invite submissions – theoretical, methodological, empirical – that address the broad theme of ageing, digital technologies and communication.
Session Organizers:
Chair: