How Can Phatic Technology Design Respect the Context of Older People Living Independently?

摘要

This paper describes a design research that aims to unearth the meaning of living alone for older people, so that phatic technology can be designed to acknowledge this context. Phatic technologies are minimal communications technologies that create and maintain social interaction possibilities.Based on an ethnomethodological (EM)-inspired approach, diary studies and interviews were conducted with nine participants over the age of 50 years old in Brisbane, Australia. The findings show that, for the participants, aging means the realization of the reduction of physical and mentalabilities, and although living alone has downsides such as loneliness, they are resourceful to ‘make living alone works’ by being active because ‘living means doing’. Therefore, this research concludes that phatic technology should not be designed as a mean to counterloneliness at home but instead, to supplement the already established social contact which the participants have outside of their homes.