Bridging the digital divide: an award for Prof Shi Cheng’s work on age-friendly apps
In today's world, with just a few clicks on our mobile phones and by downloading some applications (apps), many daily tasks can be completed in no time at all, making our lives much easier.
However, many of the elderly find it hard to keep up with such digital technologies and become victims of the "digital divide."
Prof Shi Cheng, a Research Assistant Professor of the School of Graduate Studies and the Institute of Policy Studies at Lingnan University, has been focusing on these issues for senior citizens throughout her career. Last year, she began to research "Digital Bridge or Digital Barrier? A Study on Older People's Acceptance and Resistance of “Senior Mode” in Apps", planning to bridge this gap, and help seniors integrate into the digital society.
Prof Shi's project on age-friendly apps won second prize in the first phase of the Social Value Open Research Program.
The project recently won second prize in the first phase of the Social Value Open Research Program, one of 12 out of 25 award-winning projects.
Run by Tencent SSV (Tencent Sustainable Social Value), Cultural China and the Tencent Research Institute, the program encourages researchers to learn about social concerns from small issues in order to provide future references for companies to solve these problems through technology by working with universities.
Prof Shi has analysed this digital divide for several years. At the outset of her award-winning project, she interviewed an older group of users to find out how the senior mode of the three most used apps, WeChat, Taobao and TikTok, helps them, and their experiences of using this mode.
She found that most of them did not even use the senior mode, feeling that learning the mode itself was an obstacle, and also that was too simplistic as many functions are removed, or the font size simply enlarged.
"Simplifying some of the functions is actually another form of exclusion for the elderly,” Prof Shi says, “as some functions they want to use are gone. Once they choose the senior mode, they are isolated. To some extent, that doesn’t help them integrate into the digital society but rather exacerbates their exclusion."
The research suggests app development companies design functions that better meet the needs of the elderly and improve user experience through in-depth surveys. At the same time, support from society, family, and their local community may help to facilitate and motivate older people to learn and use these apps, and better integrate better into the digital society.
Emphasising that issues faced by older population are real social problems, Prof Shi suggests students engaging in this area of research should talk to older people directly so as to understand better whether their research ideas are in line with reality, and are reasonable and actually helpful.
Recently, Prof Shi was the only scholar chosen from a Hong Kong university to be appointed as a member of the Expert Group of Long-term Care Insurance under China National Healthcare Security Administration—. "I am very honored to be selected. To me, it is also a recognition of my long-term research on ageing and social policy," she says.
Looking ahead, Prof Shi will focus on three research topics — retirement planning, long-term care, and dementia, and study how to link policies, families, and the older people so as to achieve a more harmonious society.
Professor Shi participating in a seminar organised by the Chinese Association of Hong Kong & Macao Studies.
Professor Shi has long been engaged in research related to aging and social policy.
Prof Shi has visited numbers of countries as a visiting scholar to learn the development of local social security policies.