Digi65: Digitally mediated interaction among older adults (65+)
The Digi65 project examines older adults’ (65+) digitally mediated language use and the role digital communication technologies play in their everyday lives.
The project investigates older adults’ linguistic styles and how they communicate with both peers and younger generations. It also examines the ideas and assumptions older adults hold about their own and other generations’ digital language use. In addition, the project explores the meanings that digital communication technologies have in the everyday lives of older adults.
The project is part of the research project Generation X, Y and Z and digital language practices: Intra- and intergenerational meaning-making, adaption and attitudes (XYZdigi), a collaboration between University of Jyväskylä (Finland), University of Gothenburg (Sweden), and University of Copenhagen. This project explores generational differences in digital language practices among young, middle-aged, and older adults. It examines how different generations perceive their own and each other’s linguistic practices, whether they adapt their language use to each other, and how these patterns compare across Finland, Sweden, and Denmark.
Around seventy percent of the 65 to 74-year-olds in Denmark currently use social media. This means that older adults today are the first generation of Danes to experience life around and after retirement as users of digital communication technologies and social media. Older adults today also constitute the largest population group in Denmark. Despite this, relatively little is known about their digital language practices, their use of digital communication technologies, and the role such technologies play in their everyday lives. By focusing on older adults’ digitally mediated language use and social practices, this project contributes new knowledge about how digital communication technologies are used and experienced within this age group.
The project investigates older adults’ digitally mediated linguistic and social practices based on the following research questions:
- What characterizes older adults’ digital language use in practice? In particular, which linguistic features and styles are associated with this age group?
- Which communicative and identity-related functions do digital communication technologies serve in older adults’ everyday lives?
- Which norms for language use do older adults articulate in interviews and in practice? Including which language and media ideologies do they orient towards?
- What linguistic differences and similarities exist between teenagers, adults, and older adults’ language use?
To answer these questions, we employ several different methods. Observations and recordings of digitally mediated linguistic practices will reveal how older adults’ language use functions in practice. Interviews and participant observation will reveal the role digital communication technologies play among older adults, as well as their perceptions of their own and others’ digital language use.
- Åsa Palviainen, Professor and PI for the XYZdigi-project
- Kira Heiskanen, PhD-fellow
- Åsa Wengelin, Professor
Researchers
| Name | Title | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skov, Marianne Haugaard | Postdoc | +4535325469 | |
| Stæhr, Andreas Candefors | Associate Professor | +4535335747 |
