From Living Space to Urban Quarter: Acceptance of ICT Monitoring Solutions in an Ageing Society

摘要

The question of designing safe, secure, and human-centered urban living environments is complex, as different and controversial needs from different sources have to be harmonized. The ongoing demographic change with more and more older and frail persons living in urban environments raise the question how modern technologies in the information and communication sector can be seamlessly integrated in specific urban spaces. Not only (medical) safety and data security issues need to be considered but also technology acceptance and the fragile trade-off between the ubiquity of technologies on the one and the perceived trust in and reliability of technologies on the other hand are of pivotal importance. To understand users' willingness to accept monitoring technologies in different locations (ranging from home to public spaces) we pursued an exploratory approach. 127 participants in a wide age range volunteered to take part in the questionnaire study. Results show that individuals independently of age and gender are quite reluctant to accept such technologies in general, even for medical reasons. It was ascertained that acceptance was impacted by the type of technology and the space (domestic vs. public) and the health status of the people.