The omnipresence of digital applications is creating a new injunction to connect for older people. The urgent need to master these procedures has thus taken an essential place among the reasons given by adults who are not or not very comfortable with digital technology for equipping themselves and developing their skills.
The difficulties encountered by the elderly are now well documented and give rise to numerous initiatives by administrations, local authorities, social action players and associations.
Based on a socio-ethnographic survey from people aged 62 to 82, Lucie Delias, a lecturer in information and communication sciences, shows how "the online passage of certain procedures provokes, for older adults still away from digital practices, an obligation to 'get on with it ' which does not go without provoking difficulties, in particular for retirees from working classes".
Relations with institutions: an increasingly central reason for "conversion" to digital uses
A large number of studies highlight the role of the family environment in motivating older adults to equip themselves with and use digital tools, particularly with a view to communicating and maintaining the link with grandchildren."If this reason is indeed found among respondents who are unfamiliar with digital technology, a large proportion of them declare that they feel compelled to "get started", which is more related to relations with institutions, in a context of recent acceleration of the dematerialization of daily life procedures, which requires the use of the Internet and computer equipment," adds Lucie Delias. "Thus, several respondents who did not have a particular appetite for connected computing, or were even reluctant to use it, and had managed to circumvent its use until then, ended up developing uses for this reason.A particularly crucial issue for the least socially advantaged retirees
This issue is particularly crucial for the least socially advantaged retirees, who are more likely to be non-users or partial users, while being more often required to interact with public institutions than other categories of the population. "Because of the weakness of their economic resources, they are more often led to interact with public institutions. In addition to the constitution of the retirement file, which is often complex in the case of precarious and discontinuous careers, they may, for example, apply for the Allocation Solidarité Personnes Âgées, while the combination of their age and their level of education means that they are less likely to be acculturated to digital technology.But not only. If it affects more severely working-class retirees and the less autonomous, Lucie Delias, based on her survey, shows that " the digitization of private and general interest services causes concern among a large number of older adults, even among those whose digital skills are relatively advanced; suggesting that dematerialization induces practical difficulties, but also involves more symbolic issues, insofar as it questions the place of the elderly in a largely digital society.
Tax filing focuses seniors' concerns
"Declaring one's income is not like any other process: it is a complex operation, and possible errors can have significant consequences. Thus, some respondents, although comfortable with other online tasks, get stuck on this one."In addition, beyond the formal difficulties that it may entail, "this process has particular social meanings that may explain this focus: being universal and common to all citizens, no longer having access to it also means calling into question a certain form of social participation, and involves a recognition issue for older adults.
What place for the elderly in a connected future?
While putting essential administrative procedures online has important practical implications, it also reveals more symbolic issues, which relate to the place of the elderly in an increasingly digitalized society. " When talking about dematerialization, the respondents often mention the theme of the future, and their ability to evolve in a socio-technical environment experiencing particularly rapid changes.- Edith (82 years old, former accountant): "We must not forget that we are arriving at a stage of computerization where everything is going to be online, and that we must also be up to speed. It's not easy. "
- Aziz (72 years old, former fashion designer): " In the future, in 5 or 6 years, it happens (...). The future is this, the modern is this. "
- Colette (65 years old, former bank employee): " But it's the future anyway! It's the future, and like any system, there's a positive side as well as a negative side. There is nothing we can do about it. "
- Patricia (65 years old, former teacher): " It's imminent. It's age groups, there's still a tolerance for old people like me. It' s a kind of demographic extinction... our age group is going to disappear, and then there will only be people who are supposed to be digitized."
"Find your account" from constrained uses
If the problems linked to the dematerialization of administrative services posed to older adults who are not very comfortable with digital tools are therefore deployed at a practical and symbolic level, Lucie Delias qualifies the negative aspects of this phenomenon.The feelings and more complex experiences that she collected " suggest that the dematerialization of relations with administrations is not automatically - or not only - a source of difficulties, and can sometimes, on the contrary, allow users to avoid certain negative experiences related to the original system".
More generally, Lucie Delias notes that "the respondents who declare that they were obliged to familiarize themselves with digital tools because of dematerialization, despite their initial reluctance, most of the time end up developing more personal and gratifying online uses, related to leisure or sociability .
The expression of negative feelings linked to the injunctions to connect and the significant efforts required to develop digital autonomy can even coexist " with a certain enthusiasm for the possibilities opened up by the uses of the Internet, when they correspond to chosen activities".
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