Fig. 15.3Usage fields Germany – itemized by age
It can also be noticed that elders indeed use the net for self‐realization, but that there is room for increase in the social component of the medium. That matches with the view of the Internet that older people have. More than a quarter of the interviewees over 60 agree with the following statement: “I have found the sites, which interest me on the Internet and hardly look for additional offers”. A personal identification with the medium, as it is widespread among younger social environments, hardly takes place. The lowest agreement find statements such as: “I always like to be stimulated by new sites and offers on the Internet” or “The Internet is especially important for me, since I can present myself with a personal profile” – only 7% of the interviewees recognized their own usage behavior here [18]. All of this, report Frees and Koch in their evaluation of the ARD/ZDF online study 2015, indicates a “pragmatic usage of the net by the older generation”. But, because of the “natural evolution” of media‐competent generations, this functional spread will soon change and the activities of older people will increase, even “in the case of applications which are currently still in the domain of the youthful” [19]. Thus, it is only a question of time before elders look at the Internet not just as a communication tool, but realize that it is a natural part of life. But why wait?
15.3 Positive Potential of Digital Media Usage
The anecdotes, which Dagmar Hirche tells from her daily work, almost sound like DSL flatrate and smartphone commercials – too good to be true. There was the Hamburg pensioner who, with the help of a user‐generated wheelmap.org map [20] on which barrier‐free restaurants and shops were indicated, organized his daily life around these entries. Then there was the elderly lady, who “really perked up since she understood the WhatsApp group of her sports club”. There are innumerable grandmothers and grandfathers, who communicate with their grandchildren and family via Facetime, Line, Skype, WhatsApp and other channels. “We are living in a mobile age”, says Hirche, “People move to other continents, or relocate debates which used to take place at regulars’ tables, to WhatsApp groups. We have to take older people with us – it’s in everybody’s interest”
There are numerous studies, which are dedicated to the (harmful) effects of digital media on the attention span, IQ and empathy ability of (young) people. The impacts of digital media on the condition, health, as well as economic or social integration respectively, of older people have been researched to a much lesser degree. It would exceed the scope of this essay to give a systematic analysis of the current state of research. Nevertheless, the following positive potentials are worth mentioning: Subjective contentedness: In the year 2000, psychologists from the Carnegie Mellon University found that people “became more depressive the more they used the Internet” [21]. Kraut and Burke based this effect on the idea that “the Internet at that time consisted mainly of academic aspects; one didn’t talk to friends, but rather with strangers and colleagues”. In a comparative study from the year 2015, Kraut and Burke asserted that the ramifications on the frame of mind depends on the usage of the medium: “The more people communicate with good friends, write comments or posts, the more the contentedness rises” [22]. Especially older citizens, who often live isolated in apartments or establishments for elders, profit from the new contact possibilities with friends and family. And in contrast to other important factors which influence contentment in life, such as income, religion or health, digital competency can be “influenced comparatively easily” [23].
Health: The social capital of people has a direct influence on their health. Yvonne Michael, an epidemiologist at the Drexel University School of Public Health, found this out from an extensive referendum. Social activities not only have a positive effect on factors such as cognitive capability, but they also increase the likelihood that one will look after one’s own health and, for example, regularly go to preventive medical checkups [24]. In a time when the medical insurances are suffering from a demographic change, this factor cannot be underestimated.
Economy: The age group of over 55‐year‐olds does not count as an important economic factor. The Golden Age Index 2016 [25] of the Management Consultancy PwC, however, asserts that countries such as Great Britain or Germany [26], in which less that 60% of over 55‐year‐olds work, could raise their GNP by up to five percent, if it reached “Swedish conditions”: 68% of this age group there works.
15.4 Who Benefits from the Internet and Who Does Not
In July 2016, free access to the Internet was officially declared to be a human right by the General Assembly of the United Nations [27]. Yet, the world is still far from implementing this right. Rough estimates indicated in 2015 that approximately 3.2 billion people are online, thus, not even half of the total population. Mary Meeker, market researcher, investment banker, and author of Internet Trend Report, renowned for more than 20 years, in her current edition, identifies four main factors, which make access to the Internet difficult [28]. Among these are: inadequate infrastructure, low income and affordable access, as well as the lack of personal competency of the users and incentives to use the net.
Therefore, it is a case of extrinsic as well as intrinsic and technical as well as socio‐economic factors. It may be surprising that especially the first two factors are comparably easy to eliminate. More than three quarters of all people worldwide are within the physical reach of a mobile Internet signal, according to the “State of Connectivity 2015” report, which Facebook issues annually [29]. In addition, the percentage of people who are able to afford a base monthly rate of 500 megabyte per month, is rising considerably: within the last two years by about 500 million people.
Much more serious, however, are the education and motivation factors. Anyone who can neither read nor write is hardly able to fully use the Internet. Sufficient linguistic skills are fundamental for complete usage of the Internet. More than 80% of all websites worldwide are constructed in one of only ten languages (English, French, Spanish and Chinese, among others) [30]. Anyone who is not skilled in these languages will find that the Internet suddenly becomes a much smaller system. From that, the last factor becomes apparent: Whoever does not understand what the Internet is, and what possibility it offers, will not find a reason to be connected. According to the Facebook study, approximately two thirds of all non‐connected people in developing countries belong to this group.
It is, therefore, not surprising when the management consultancy McKinsey, write in their report “Offline and Falling Behind: Barriers to Internet Adoption,” [31] that approximately 75% of all people not connected to the net indicate very similar characteristics: they come from one of 20 developing countries, live predominantly in rural areas, have a relatively low income, can neither read nor write, and are female.
More surprising, however, is the fact that hindrances in developed countries are apparently very similar. The Digital‐Think‐Tank D21, situated in Berlin, identifies six different user classes in Germany in its Digital‐Index 2015 [32]. The least connected archetype, named “Outside skeptic” is of advanced age, has a low available income and a low formal education, lives in a rural area – and is female. It is necessary to “promote user types according to their requirements” and “overcome structural handicaps” [33], according to the conclusions of the D‐21 study. As long as this does not take place there is a cycle. Marginalized groups stay offline because they are marginalized – and they stay marginalized because they are offline.
15.5 Digital Media and the Ability for Empathy
When Dr. Sonya Kim visits a senior citizens’ home she brings new perspectives. The American doctor is founder of the organization One Caring Team [34], whose concept so far has consisted of connecting volunteers with elderly people in institutions, typi
cally via telephone. The young people call, listen, ask questions and so give the inhabitants the feeling of still being anchored in the world. Recently, Kim has been experimenting additionally with Virtual‐Reality‐Glasses [35], a program with the appropriate name “Aloha VR” which relocates the elders to a virtual beach on Hawaii. According to Kim, the artificially produced world is meant to let them forget their “chronic pains, their fears and the fact that they are alone” [36]. There are already several independent studies, which document that the new technology can achieve this.
However, virtual reality (VR) is not only supposed to amuse elderly people [37], but also to help people worldwide find togetherness and to understand each other. Virtual reality is the “ultimate empathy machine”, as moviemaker Chris Milk said in 2015 during a presentation at the idea‐conference, TED [38]. With his production company With.in, Milk has produced so‐called 360° movies which depict one of the currently most popular virtual reality applications. These movies give the viewer the feeling of being in another place right in the midst of what is happening – the technical term is “Telepresence”. When you put on the VR glasses every head movement of the viewer becomes a camera movement. Thus, there is an immediateness, so far unknown. “It is a machine, but on the inside it feels like real life, if it is true – one becomes part of that world” as Milk endeavors to describe why his films touch the viewers to such an extent [39].
Therefore, it is only consistent that Milk showed his first documentation in the beginning of 2015, named “Clouds Over Sidra”, at the World Economic Forum in Davos [40]. The film, which is eight‐and‐a‐half minutes long, documents the life of Syrian refugees. The viewer sees, no, he finds himself in a Jordanian refugee camp, a veritable city with about 80,000 inhabitants. If he looks down on himself he sees children running around, going to school, playing football, going hungry – and he is in the midst of it. Boys crowd in front of a few archaic computers, on the screens: “Ego‐Shooter games.” “After all that has happened they still want to fight”, comments the narrator [41].
“There is no possibility of understanding how intense and convincing Virtual Reality works, if you haven’t tried it yourself”, according to people who have worked with the medium for years [42]. Therefore, it is no wonder that people who have tried the new medium for the first time, report that the directness brought them to tears [43].
In the meantime, VR and especially 360° films, are used by renowned media companies such as the New York Times [44] or the Süddeutsche Zeitung [45], to show scenes and fates in a manner which was never possible before: Refugee fates, reports from slums and the epicenters of local and global catastrophes. The media start‐up Ryot, sent one of its VR film teams to the ruins of the capital city Kathmandu, after the earthquake in Nepal in the spring of 2015, a further setting: the destroyed Aleppo. Once the smartphone is in front of your eyes, you suddenly find yourself in the streets of the Syrian city, no person in sight, only rubble and chaos. Then again, the film team has set up the camera on a rooftop: smashed facades everywhere, satellite dishes pointing aimlessly at the sky [46].
They are powerful pictures, which are being played directly before your own eyes. It is no wonder that the United Nations wanted to use the 360° films in order to collect donations. Firstly, non‐representative calculations show that the engagement of the users, after consuming such a video, really rises [47] – a technology of the future as a tool for the poor and the weak?
New media enable their users to have more participation in current world events [48]. The Internet itself has simplified the sending and receiving of messages from the most remote regions of the world. But viewing the pictures on the computer screen – no matter how urgent they were – was just a more or less passive experience. VR could change that; the viewer would find himself in the midst of the happening. And one could well imagine what uses these “empathy‐machines”, could have for people whose social contacts and mobility is inhibited: a VR meeting with the granddaughter seems more emotional and more genuine than a telephone call and the exchange of letters.
Technology will spread further and change rapidly. Some things, which still seem like science fiction today, will be part of everyday life tomorrow. In his efforts to “connect the whole world”, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, for example, wants to start so‐called Aquila drones, which can reach and connect areas, where there are neither fiber optics nor mobile communication technology – the remote areas of Central Africa, for example [49]. But one should not forget that there are still “dark continents” in the western, apparently highly technological states which are waiting for a connection to the present time and society. Thus, the grassroots may proliferate in all directions.
And, of course, there is a video in the net with the title “Elders React to Oculus Rift”, the VR glasses of the Facebook enterprise. After the test persons in the video, which is over 7 min long, initially react with reservations to the foreign object (“it looks like a tool to control my thoughts”), they still decide to put on the black, clumsy glasses, and, while they are taking a virtual walk through a villa in Tuscany, their attitude and statements change: “Is that George Clooney’s house?” says one elderly lady. Another one says: “It looks artificial and feels genuine”. A gray‐haired gentleman says: “That is really damn cool”.
15.6 Conclusion
The analysis of user data and social debate shows that elderly people are increasingly using digital media and that they are absolutely open to some of the newest technologies such as virtual reality. Citizens and researchers are both noticing during studies and educational projects that the use of digital media shows a lot of positive potential. Marginalized groups such as seniors are benefiting especially if it means that they regain access to social and economic structures through social media. The analysis of existing educational programs shows that the program is neither universally introduced nor strategically managed. Especially in times of rampant technological change it is even more important that all human beings gain access to media and the inherent possibilities. This is a challenge for the country, the economy and our society as a whole.
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