Social connector: A ubiquitous system to ease the social interaction among family community members

摘要

A family community is usually composed of three generations: elders, adults and young people. During the last years, adults and young people tend to use social media to support the interaction among them. However, this tendency is isolating the elderly, because they are usually reluctant to use computing technology. Social isolation negatively impacts the physical and mental health of the elderly. Although there are some social solutions that are suitable for elders, they are usually not comfortable for the other members in their families, producing an interaction deadlock that also generates social isolation in the elderly. Trying to help dealing with this problem, this paper proposes the use of a ubiquitous system, named Social Connector, which is capable of boosting the social interaction between elders and their close relatives. The preliminary results indicate that Social Connector is well accepted by the family members, particularly by the elderly, and it also allows increasing the social interaction from/to the elderly.