Affective technology for older adults: Does fun technology affect older adults and change their lives?

Abstract

Our daily lives are supported by various technologies. Generally said, however, older adults cannot benefit from technologies due to difficulties with use of them. As some difficulties seem to be related with the fact that older adults require more time to get used to a new thing, and it is suggested that affectiveness may facilitate of use of technologies, this study tried to clarify the influence of continuous use of portable game system on older adults' everyday life and emotion. By four-week continuous use of portable game system, some influence of it on older adults' everyday life and emotion was confirmed. The results suggested the possibility that older adults could utilize technologies which originally aimed at younger users and affectiveness could facilitate it. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.