DIY gerontechnology: circumventing mismatched technologies and bureaucratic procedure by creating care technologies of one's own.

Autor: Bergschöld JM; Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway.; Smart Sensor Systems, SINTEF Digital, Oslo, Norway., Neven L; Active Ageing Research Group, Avans University of Applied Sciences, Breda, The Netherlands., Peine A; Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Sociology of health & illness [Sociol Health Illn] 2020 Feb; Vol. 42 (2), pp. 232-246. Date of Electronic Publication: 2019 Oct 30.
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9566.13012
Abstrakt: This study analyses 'Do-It-Yourself' (DIY) gerontechnologies and shows that they can be viable and valuable alternatives to 'ready-made' gerontechnologies. Using the concept of innosumption, we analyze the work of care workers in gerontechnology showrooms in Norway. We show how and why care workers will sometimes advice older adults to assemble DIY-gerontechnologies. Such DIY-gerontechnologies are not high-tech solutions made by technology producers, but creative solutions that older adults' suit to their specific needs and assemble for themselves from mundane objects that are available in shops. So far, analyses of the design, implementation and use of gerontechnologies have almost exclusively focused on professionally designed and produced 'ready-made' gerontechnologies. But for various reasons, ready-made gerontechnologies often do not fit in well with the lives of older people. In such cases, care workers guide older people to the innosumption of DIY-gerontechnologies that offer workable solutions that are useful, quickly implemented, easily understandable and often cheap. We show that and how the existence of DIY-gerontechnologies questions the reasons behind the strong and widely accepted assumption that only high-tech innovations are a proper solution to the needs of older people.
(© 2019 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Foundation for SHIL.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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