New article: Predictors of Seniors’ Interest in Assistive Applications on Smartphones

Smartphones have been often proposed as a leverage that could make older adults and seniors (more) engaged with the world of mobile and ubiquitous computing. In particular, if mobile service providers would invest resources into designing and developing mobile applications that foster seniors' independent living at home.

The new article of Dr. Andraž Petrovčič and Dr. Vesna Dolničar (co-authored by Dr. Sebatiaan Peek, University of Tilburg) addresses the under-researched topic of seniors' interest in the adoption of three (health, care and social) types of assistive apps (e.g., SOS button, medication reminders) by investigating four different groups of predictors derived from the Cycle of Technology Acquirement by Independent-Living Seniors (C-TAILS) model.

The results suggest that Slovenian seniors (aged 55+) were only moderately attracted by the idea of engaging with three types of assistive apps. However, the study also showed that seniors' dispositional traits regarding smartphone adoption, their previous experience with mobile phone, as well as their personal characteristics and socio-economic background play an important role in determining their level of interest in such apps.  Moreover, not all factors have the same role for all types of assistive apps; this would suggest that future work is warranted in this area to better understand the origin(s) of such differences.

The open access article “Predictors of Seniors’ Interest in Assistive Applications on Smartphones: Evidence from a Population-Based Survey in Slovenia” has been published with the financial support of the Slovenian Research Agency and belongs to a special issue “Quality of Life: The Interplay between Human Behaviour, Technology and the Environment” in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.