Are Digital Twins Becoming Our Personal (Predictive) Advisors?: ‘Our Digital Mirror of Who We Were, Who We Are and Who We Will Become’

Abstract

In this paper we look at the notion of a Digital Twin and what it could entail for an aging population. A Digital Twin refers to a digital replica of potential and actual physical assets (physical twin), processes, people, places, systems and devices that can be used for various purposes. Today’s evolution of smart devices, mobile application used in different domains, could be ways of nurturing a Digital Twin. Moreover, these smart device and mobile applications are often equipped with NUI’s (Natural User Interfaces), which make them more affordable for an aging population in terms of usability. In this paper we focus on the affordance and appropriation of these assistive digital technologies. We first do a literature review on related work on ‘Aging in Place’ in combination with ‘Digital Twin’ theory. Furthermore, we conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with boomers (1946–1964) 60+ and 70+, mixed gender and mixed education, but predominately higher educated boomers living in Belgium. In addition we conducted in-depth interviews with stakeholders active in a medical environment.