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Narrowing the age-based digital divide: Developing digital capability through social activities

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posted on 2023-02-08, 12:22 authored by Yang Zhao, Tao ZhangTao Zhang, Rohit Dasgupta, Renpin Xia
Healthcare information technologies (HIT) have shown great potential for improving the effectiveness and quality of healthcare services. However, the inequal ability of older adults to use HIT may limit their exploitation of these benefits. To narrow the age-based “digital divide”, this research further develops the concept of digital capability and emphasises the link between older adults and their social context. Based on a qualitative inductive study of 33 participants, who included Chinese patients and their family members, we generate a novel theoretical model for understanding the process by which social activities may shape older adults' digital capabilities. Based on the model, we suggest two strategies that might encourage older adults to engage with HIT. This research contributes to the information systems (IS) literature by strengthening digital capability as a conceptual lens to investigate individuals' engagement with information communication technologies (ICTs). It also extends research on the social context for ICT use by revealing how social processes at multiple levels influence digital capability development. Finally, this study offers practical implications for governments and private sectors to encourage and promote ICT use by older adults.

Funding

Major Projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Grant Number: 72091313

Loughborough University

History

School

  • Loughborough University London

Published in

Information Systems Journal

Volume

33

Issue

2

Pages

268-298

Publisher

Wiley

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

© The Authors

Publisher statement

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Wiley under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-NC-ND). Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2022-06-22

Publication date

2022-07-14

Copyright date

2022

ISSN

1350-1917

eISSN

1365-2575

Language

  • en

Depositor

Deposit date: 15 September 2022

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