Explaining the Consumption Technology Acceptance in the Elderly Post-Pandemic: Effort Expectancy Does Not Matter

Abstract

Consumer technology has been enormously boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with one of the primary consumers being the elderly. In this scenario, it is necessary to consider the impact of technologies on different older generational cohorts to understand the future of a data-driven digital society fully. This research aims to explain the acceptance of social networking sites, a particular consumer technology, in the post-pandemic elderly population. Data were obtained from 1555 older adults in Chile based on a consumer technology acceptance model. The respondents were grouped according to their technological predisposition and their generation into three groups. Applying a multigroup analysis based on structural equation modelling reveals significant differences in the explanatory variables of the intention and use of this technology between the groups. And more remarkably, the effort expectancy is not statistically significant as a variable to explain this acceptance globally in either of the three groups. There are two principal contributions of this study. First, it shows why adults adopt consumer technology after the pandemic. Second, it validates a classification of elderly adults who use consumption technologies that are useful in understanding the heterogeneity of this phenomenon.