Aging and digital inclusion: Autonomy and empowerment in the light of freirean critical pedagogy

Abstract

This article is configured, in methodological terms, as a theoretical-conceptual study, which is part of a research developed at the post-doctoral level in Education. The article reflects on the importance of digital inclusion for people aged 60 or over. The exponential technological advance and the growth of the population of elderly people in Brazil make the need to discuss the digital inclusion of this age group. Digital inclusion directly impacts the full exercise of citizenship by contemporary social subjects, since the hypermedia languages of cyberspace permeate various social practices. In this context, this article seeks approximations among three concepts: Lifelong learning, digital inclusion, empowerment (in a Freirean perspective). It is considered that digital inclusion is one of the faces of the social inclusion of the elderly, due to its relevant role in the achievement of their autonomy and their full exercise of citizenship. The conceptual triad presented here - digital inclusion of the elderly, lifelong learning, empowerment - seeks to provide conceptual arguments to better understand the possible contributions of digital inclusion for the elderly, in a society marked by the strengthening of hypermedia languages in the contemporary social practices.