IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v20y2023i3p1876-d1041366.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ageing and Keeping Pace with Technology: A Grounded Theory Study on Blind Adults’ Experiences of Adapting to New Technologies

Author

Listed:
  • Alina Betlej

    (Centre of Sociological Research on the Economy and the Internet, The Department of Economic and Digital Sociology, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland)

  • Jan Gondek

    (The Department of Economic and Digital Sociology, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland)

  • Natalia Gondek

    (The Institute of Philosophy, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland)

Abstract

This study investigated blind adults’ experiences of adapting to digital technologies. The authors’ focus was on how they have been experiencing changes implied by digital transformation, which provided the starting point for assessing their prospects and/or limitations for self-development through new technologies in the future. The second point concerned designing technologies for blind adults by adding questions about their specific needs and expectations for digital device designers. To develop these main issues, we planned a qualitative grounded theory study in which 16 blind adults were individually interviewed. It aimed to provide rich descriptions of a selected phenomenon. The research analysis was conducted by using the sociological and philosophical methods, which provided insights into the social assessment of digital development for ageing by blind adults. The data analysis revealed five distinct categories that captured these experiences and expectations: (1) wishing to learn—“Digital technology gives me privacy and independence”; (2) having to learn—“If you do not have new digital devices or do not know how to use them, you end up on the margins of society”; (3) being socially excluded—“Designers of new technologies do not think about blind adults”; (4) fearing to stop understanding—“Technological development is too rapid, it is difficult to be on time while ageing”; and (5) waiting for the changes—“I hope my situation will change in the future”. Together, these five categories form the basis of the core category “Ageing and keeping pace with technology”, which encapsulates the initial adaptation experiences of the interviewees to the technological development. The findings indicate that the blind adults experienced digital devices as tools for improving their well-being, but they also saw them as posing the threat of being socially excluded because of new technology designs and accessibility barriers.

Suggested Citation

  • Alina Betlej & Jan Gondek & Natalia Gondek, 2023. "Ageing and Keeping Pace with Technology: A Grounded Theory Study on Blind Adults’ Experiences of Adapting to New Technologies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-19, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:3:p:1876-:d:1041366
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/3/1876/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/3/1876/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jumi Hwang & Kyung Hee Kim & Jong Gyu Hwang & Sungchan Jun & Jiwon Yu & Chulung Lee, 2020. "Technological Opportunity Analysis: Assistive Technology for Blind and Visually Impaired People," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-17, October.
    2. Park, Inchae & Yoon, Byungun, 2018. "Technological opportunity discovery for technological convergence based on the prediction of technology knowledge flow in a citation network," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 1199-1222.
    3. Katarzyna Kujawa & Alina Żurek & Agata Gorączko & Roman Olejniczak & Grzegorz Zurek, 2022. "Monitoring Eye Movements Depending on the Type of Visual Stimulus in Patients with Impaired Consciousness Due to Brain Damage," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-11, May.
    4. Magdalena Agnieszka Wrzesińska & Klaudia Tabała & Patryk Stecz, 2021. "Gaming Behaviors among Polish Students with Visual Impairment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-12, February.
    5. Shareef, Mahmud Akhter & Kumar, Vinod & Dwivedi, Yogesh K. & Kumar, Uma & Akram, Muhammad Shakaib & Raman, Ramakrishnan, 2021. "A new health care system enabled by machine intelligence: Elderly people's trust or losing self control," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    6. Woochun Jun, 2021. "A Study on Cause Analysis of Digital Divide among Older People in Korea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-13, August.
    7. Alina Betlej, 2022. "Designing Robots for Elderly from the Perspective of Potential End-Users: A Sociological Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-17, March.
    8. Grzegorz Kinelski & Jakub Stęchły & Piotr Bartkowiak, 2022. "Various Facets of Sustainable Smart City Management: Selected Examples from Polish Metropolitan Areas," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-23, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alina Betlej, 2023. "Social Networks, New Technologies, and Wellbeing—An Interview Study on Factors Influencing Older Adults’ Successful Ageing," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(7), pages 1-17, March.
    2. Dejing Kong & Jianzhong Yang & Lingfeng Li, 2020. "Early identification of technological convergence in numerical control machine tool: a deep learning approach," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 1983-2009, December.
    3. Surajit Bag & Shivam Gupta & Ajay Kumar & Uthayasankar Sivarajah, 2021. "An integrated artificial intelligence framework for knowledge creation and B2B marketing rational decision making for improving firm performance," Post-Print hal-03188195, HAL.
    4. Lu Huang & Xiang Chen & Yi Zhang & Changtian Wang & Xiaoli Cao & Jiarun Liu, 2022. "Identification of topic evolution: network analytics with piecewise linear representation and word embedding," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(9), pages 5353-5383, September.
    5. Haiyan Kong & Huifang Liu, 2023. "The Relationship between ICT Use and Perceived Life Satisfaction among Older People in Korea: The Mediating Effect of Social Capital," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-18, June.
    6. Ren, Haiying & Zhao, Yuhui, 2021. "Technology opportunity discovery based on constructing, evaluating, and searching knowledge networks," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    7. Wu, Yingwen & Ji, Yangjian, 2023. "Identifying firm-specific technology opportunities from the perspective of competitors by using association rule mining," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2).
    8. Ebadi, Ashkan & Auger, Alain & Gauthier, Yvan, 2022. "Detecting emerging technologies and their evolution using deep learning and weak signal analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4).
    9. Chand Bhatt, Priyanka & Kumar, Vimal & Lu, Tzu-Chuen & Daim, Tugrul, 2021. "Technology convergence assessment: Case of blockchain within the IR 4.0 platform," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    10. Suen, Hung-Yue & Hung, Kuo-En, 2024. "Revealing the influence of AI and its interfaces on job candidates' honest and deceptive impression management in asynchronous video interviews," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    11. Văidean, Viorela Ligia & Achim, Monica Violeta, 2022. "When more is less: Do information and communication technologies (ICTs) improve health outcomes? An empirical investigation in a non-linear framework," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    12. Ying Tang & Xuming Lou & Zifeng Chen & Chengjin Zhang, 2020. "A Study on Dynamic Patterns of Technology Convergence with IPC Co-Occurrence-Based Analysis: The Case of 3D Printing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-26, March.
    13. Shugang Li & Ziyi Li & Yixin Tang & Wenjing Zhao & Xiaoqi Kang & Lingling Zheng & Zhaoxu Yu, 2024. "Pioneering Technology Mining Research for New Technology Strategic Planning," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(15), pages 1-26, August.
    14. Pham, Phuoc & Zhang, Huilan & Gao, Wenlian & Zhu, Xiaowei, 2024. "Determinants and performance outcomes of artificial intelligence adoption: Evidence from U.S. Hospitals," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    15. Cenamor, Javier, 2022. "Use of health self-management platform features: The case of a specialist ehealth app," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    16. Aw, Eugene Cheng-Xi & Tan, Garry Wei-Han & Cham, Tat-Huei & Raman, Ramakrishnan & Ooi, Keng-Boon, 2022. "Alexa, what's on my shopping list? Transforming customer experience with digital voice assistants," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    17. Li, Xin & Wang, Yan, 2024. "A novel integrated approach for quantifying the convergence of disruptive technologies from science to technology," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    18. Aleksandra Kuzior & Dariusz Krawczyk & Paulina Brożek & Olena Pakhnenko & Tetyana Vasylieva & Serhiy Lyeonov, 2022. "Resilience of Smart Cities to the Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Context of Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-22, October.
    19. Zhao, Shengchao & Zeng, Deming & Li, Jian & Feng, Ke & Wang, Yao, 2023. "Quantity or quality: The roles of technology and science convergence on firm innovation performance," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    20. Juite Wang & Tzu-Yen Hsu, 2023. "Early discovery of emerging multi-technology convergence for analyzing technology opportunities from patent data: the case of smart health," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(8), pages 4167-4196, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:3:p:1876-:d:1041366. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.