Using ICT and quality of life: Comparing persons with and without disabilities

Abstract

Calls to promote greater participations of persons with disabilities in society usually deal with the use of various IC-based technologies. Many of initiatives also deal with the quality of life (QoL) of those persons and discuss possible impacts of ICT use on that quality. By comparing persons with and without disabilities, this study examined the extent to which (1) individuals used IC-based technologies, (2) their QoL was improved due to the use of those technologies, and (3) this use (USE) was related to that QoL improvement (IQoL). It was found that both USE and IQoL were lower for persons with disabilities, and that correlation between USE and IQoL was stronger for those persons. The study examines the role of education and its potential to improve the QoL for persons with disabilities as a result of better use of ICTs.