Creating speculative mobile media futures with older adults in Australia

Abstract

People aged over 65 (“older adults”) are among the first to enter later life in a digital data-saturated world. Many older adults across the world are surrounded by mobile media and computational data in their everyday lives. Mobile media, including smartphones, tablets, and wearables, are near-ubiquitous in Australia. At the same time, older adults are among the most digitally excluded in the country and older adults have diverse feelings towards mobile media. High rates of mobile media absorption in the everyday lives of older Australians can obscure the heterogeneity of experiences, perceptions, and concerns towards digital data. In this paper, we use creative speculative methods to unearth older adults’ current and future mobile media affordances (contexts of use), fears and concerns, and what using these methods can reveal about contemporary and future-orientated ageing in data practices.