Paper short abstract:

We examine the problems faced by older people confronted with the transfer of governmental procedures to digital environments in Cameroon and Chile. Striking similarities appear in the adaptation of these 'digital immigrants' to an environment usually associated with youth culture.

Paper long abstract:

People aged 60 and over constitute the fastest growing demographic in the world (WHO 2014). In Chile, as is the case worldwide, most governmental bureaucratic procedures are being digitalized and transferred to online platforms. Older people can face issues of digital exclusion from these new processes. In 2018, around 80% of the access to the internet in Chile and Cameroon was done through mobile devices. Despite this, there has been little significant research addressing the problems faced by older people in adopting this technology. Based on our fieldwork in Santiago (Chile) and Yaoundé (Cameroon), as well as other field sites within the ASSA project, we examine the difficulties older people experience during this process of becoming 'digital immigrants' (Fozard et al. 2009). These include technical difficulties in learning how to use new mobile devices (Leung et al. 2012) as well as social issues, such as the availability of kin to provide assistance. Our preliminary results reflect the essential ambivalence of digital culture (Horst and Miller 2012). Our evidence that older people view this process of adaptation as one that creates overwhelming stress and frustration. Yet simultaneously they often express both enthusiasm and curiosity. The smartphone is first confronted as a sign of youth culture for this age group, an alien territory. However, an alien territory, that these digital immigrants want to make theirs.