Tranzo Pearl | Age discrimination

Age discrimination is still considered a socially acceptable form of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination against people because of their age. It affects older people in many areas, such as work, health care, and the use of technology. However, we identified a lack of empirical research, theory, and understanding of the potential role of age discrimination in the design, use, and acceptance of digital technology.

The project initially focuses on older people and future older people. By making professionals and policy makers aware of the impact of age discrimination, we hope to reduce age discrimination and intergenerational tensions regarding technology and to empower older people to use digital technologies that can improve their quality of life.

Ittay Mannheim will defend his thesis, Ageism in the Use and Design of Digital Technology, in June 2023. The goal of this PhD research was to contribute to a greater understanding of how ageism manifests itself in the context of digital technology and the potential role of ageism as an underlying factor that can influence the design, use, and acceptance of digital technology. To investigate this, a mixed methods approach was adopted. Both quantitative and qualitative data and literature reviews were used. Perspectives of stakeholders (elderly, designers, researchers, and healthcare professionals) were also included in the study as well as the influence of the context (use and design of digital technology).

Social impact

5 scientific articles were published as part of this research (2 still under review), 1 book chapter and 9 presentations at scientific conferences. In addition, several educational activities have resulted from it, including a widely accessible symposium on aging and age discrimination organized at Fontys University of Applied Sciences.

This project was part of a Horizon 2020 project called Euroageism. One of the goals of this program was to create social impact and make policy recommendations. The work of this project was, therefore, presented as a policy brief and presented at various policy events. In addition, the findings were also presented to various stakeholder audiences, including senior citizen groups, academic working groups and research institutes, students, policy stakeholders, and the technology industry. Additional educational activities notably included webinars for older adults in Scotland and a public lecture for older adults in Israel.

This project is only a first step. In the future, we will focus on influencing the design of digital technologies more broadly to better meet the needs of older adults and to reduce age discrimination in society in general and with respect to digital technology in particular.