Information and communication technology as a tool for improving physical and social activity of the elderly Helena Blažun, MSc1,2, Kaija Saranto, PhD2, Peter Kokol, PhD1, Janez Vošner, BSc1 1 University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia; 2University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland Abstract Information and communication technologies (ICT) can enrich elderly people’s lives in various ways. The objective of this interventional quasi-experimental research study among elderly people in Slovenia and Finland is to present associations and relations between computer/Internet use, physical activity and social inclusion before and after a ICT interaction. The first study (before interaction) included 58 (M=72,41) and the second study (after interaction) 45 (M=72,96) elderly people. The results showed an increased level of social inclusion and physical activity by the elderly after becoming acquainted with ICT. Additionally, through ICT interaction, the elderly people developed new friendships and so expanded their social networks, which they also found easier to maintain with support from ICT. Introduction Information and communication technologies (ICT) are becoming more and more important for supporting the social inclusion of elderly people1. There are various ways of ICT exploitation by elderly people, such as browsing the Internet, sending e-mails, having telephone conversations, reading news, sending postcards, taking care of personal banking, etc.2. Thus, the purpose of this article is to show how technology, and computer and Internet interaction in particular, can enrich the lives of elderly people by expanding their personal social networks, developing new friendships and, in general, positively influencing their social inclusion. Social inclusion is about being part of a community and a supportive social network and could be defined as a condition where people feel valued, their differences are respected, and their basic needs are met so they can live in dignity3,4. Maintaining physical activity, social networks and other engagements in society can positively affect elderly people’s well-being, because in this way they strengthen their mental as well as physical health5. Many elderly people would like to work with computers, but, as also mentioned by Hill et al., even if some elderly people possess a computer and have Internet access, they do not have the opportunity to go online, because more individuals want to utilize the connections at the same time6. Karahasanović et al. reviewed research studies on how elderly people interact in social networks, and how they maintain and create relationships in new media. Elderly people who are part of social network feel safer and more secure; additionally, if they have the feeling that they are in control of the technology, they will even increase the sharing of multimedia content. In the case of elderly people who are already socializing and have good social contacts, ICT will even help deepen the relationships. In contrast, elderly people who are not active members of the community will not participate, even if they are invited to the online social network. The study showed that elderly people who did participate in social networks were able to deepen their relationships with other people, neighbors, etc 7. In a randomized controlled trial, White et al. investigated the psychosocial impact of the Internet engagement of older people and found that the elderly perceive the Internet as a way to develop new social activities and to replace some activities which are less appropriate for them8. Slegers et al. carried out a randomized controlled trial to study the relationship between computer use and the physical, social and emotional well-being of elderly people at the baseline, after 4 months and after 12 months. The study showed that the elderly considered themselves physically less active than at the baseline - before ICT interaction (after 4 months), and volunteer work also decreased equally after ICT interaction. This may be a result of the ICT engagement, due to which the elderly did not have time to engage in physical activity and volunteer work. The researchers found significant changes over time in the frequency of meeting people with whom the elderly shared private things. Light computer users at first showed an increase between the baseline and 4-month follow-up, and a decrease after the 4-month follow-up. In contrast, heavy computer users showed an increase over all-time intervals9. Similar results were found in the research study by Koopman-Boyden and Reid, who found significant correlations between Internet and email use and participation in
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recreational activities. Elderly people aged 65 or more who used the Internet were typically more likely than nonusers to participate in a wide range of recreational activities (outdoor activities)10. Despite the fact that there are evidence-based studies on elderly people’s ICT engagement and its effects on their social lives and physical activity, they are mainly suggestive and not representative. The present interventional quasi-experimental study in Slovenia and Finland focused on the social life style changes of the elderly before and after ICT interaction. In this paper, we will discuss how ICT interaction affected the engagement in physical activity, the developing and maintaining the social networks of elderly people, general social inclusion and possible ways of integrating into society. Research questions The main aim of this paper is to investigate how ICT affects elderly people’s social lives and their physical activity. In particular, we were interested in addressing the following questions: 1.
In which way and to what extent has ICT interaction affected elderly people’s physical activity?
2.
To what extent can elderly people establish friendships through ICT interaction?
3.
How do elderly people evaluate their involvement in society before and after ICT interaction?
Answering these questions could help health care professionals who work with elderly people, as well as the family members of elderly people, to understand their social needs and how to overcome the barriers preventing their social inclusion with the help of ICT. Materials and methods An international interventional quasi-experimental research study was performed in Slovenia and in Finland, before and after computer interaction initiated during the ICT training courses, with 58 elderly people who participated in the first study and 45 elderly who participated in the second study. The mean age of the participants in the first study was 72.41 years (SD=9.15) and that in the second research study 72.96 years (SD=9.25). Prior to the study, the elderly were informed that participation in the study is voluntary and could be refused at any time and that the results of the research would only be used for research purposes. In both research studies the majority of the participants were female (60% female, 40% male), and the majority of the Finnish participants had completed vocational school, in contrast to the Slovene elderly, the majority of whom had completed high school. Additionally, there was a difference in applying to the ICT courses: in Finland the elderly had more self-initiative, as they applied spontaneously within the Kuopio Community College. In Slovenia, the elderly people were invited to participate in ICT training events organized within the European project PRIMER-ICT. The Finnish participants live mainly in apartments and the Slovene participants live in homes for the elderly, but in addition own their own houses. All live more or less independently; the number of Slovene participants needing help from other people was slightly higher (approx. 10%). The purpose of this study was to analyze the difference in the frequency of physical and social activity before and after 3 weeks of the ICT interaction. Elderly people in Slovenia participated in ICT training course one a week for 3 hours, and in Finland once a week for 4 hours. At the beginning of the ICT training elderly people were acquainted with computer equipment, learned basic ICT skills, learned how to browse the Internet and search different information. ICT interaction included plenary sessions, ICT training and possibilities for discussion. We therefore developed two research questionnaires, divided into three parts: background information part, quality of life part and quality of life in connection to ICT use part. All data were collected by the first author, who has access to the results. Both questionnaires consist of open-ended, close-ended and combined open-close-ended questions, and in this paper we focus only on questions relating to physical activity, number of friendships gained and general social inclusion. The data were analyzed by using the IBM SPSS Statistics 19 software to perform descriptive statistics: frequencies, cross tabulations, mean values and the following inferential statistics: Chi-square tests, correspondence analyses and Spearman’s correlation. Findings Effects of ICT interaction on elderly’s physical activity The study findings showed that only 20% of the Finnish and 26.9% of the Slovene elderly people found positive effects on physical activity via computers, and only 30% of the Slovene elderly think that the information was of benefit to them, in the sense that before engaging in computer interaction they were not at all active physically and
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after working with computers they were. All of the Finnish elderly people were physically active before the ICT interaction, and the situation after engaging in computer interaction did not change at all. The number of elderly people who devoted one hour per day to physical activity increased after engaging in computer interaction (Finnish elderly from 40% to 52.9%, Slovene elderly from 29% to 66.7%). Additionally, the percentage of those who were not at all active physically increased in Finland from the first to the second study (from 12% to 17.6%), while the percentage of Slovene elderly who were not physically active decreased (from 12.9% to 7.4%). With the Chi-square test we found a significant relation among the Slovene elderly between the time devoted to physical activity and the answer Yes or No to the question whether the elderly searched for information about the positive effects of physical activity (p= 0.029). On the other hand, the Mann-Whitney test did not reveal a significant difference between the time devoted to physical activity and searching for information about the positive effects of physical activity among all participants (p=0.089), or separately for each country (Finland: p=0.304; Slovenia: p=0.193). Overall, the findings associated with the first research question imply that computer interaction could positively affect elderly’s physical activity. Effects of ICT interaction on elderly’s social activity Results connected to the second research question showed, that after engaging in computer interaction, the elderly people were able to establish friendships with other people. The Finnish elderly got acquainted with 2 to 5 (M=3.67 friends; SD=1.21) and the Slovene elderly with 0 to 30 (M=6.11 friends; SD=10.09) new friends. Using the nonparametric Spearman’s correlation test, we found that in Slovenia, the elderly who are socially active with computers actually increased their ability to develop and maintain their personal networks (p=0.025). However, the results associated with the third research question imply that the elderly people’s perception of social inclusion did not change before or after computer interaction. We did not find any statistical difference in social inclusion comparing the first and second studies, Slovene and Finnish elderly people, nor any difference in how males and females perceived social inclusion. Spearman’s correlation also showed that in Finland, the physical activity of the elderly is in an inverse proportion to Internet use (r=−0.374; p=0.065) and online social networks (r=−0.036; p=0.921), while in Slovenia, the connection between physical activity and frequency of Internet use is directly proportional and even significant (r=0.443; p=0.027). In Finland, the connection between the number of friends and time devoted to physical activity is directly proportional and significant (r=0.377; p=0.037), while in Slovenia it is inversely proportional (r=−0.083; p=0.558). We also found a significant correlation in the frequency of Internet use and social network use by the Slovene elderly people (p=0.002); on the other hand, we did not find a significant correlation between Internet and social network use among the Finnish elderly people. Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) is used, among others, to graphically present categorical data (cases and categories), so that objects within the same category are close together and objects in different categories are far apart, dividing the objects into homogeneous subgroups within categories. We performed the MCA on the variables “Country”, “How many friends do you have?”, “How often do you use the Internet?”, “Time devoted to physical activity?”, “Did you find positive effects regarding physical activity through the computer?”. The joint variable plot is shown in Figure 1. After a careful analysis of Figure 1 and naming the dimensions, we see that Dimension 1 discriminates between the countries, so Dimension 1 could be “Country”, but no clear discrimination could be deduced for Dimension 2. We have two outliers not associated with any groupings, namely “Monthly” internet use, and “Less than 10 minutes” of physical activity per day. The average categories are “No” search for positive effects of physical activity, “Less than 1 hour” of physical activity per day and “More than 8 friends”, which together form the following average association: Elderly people who do not search for positive effects of physical activity engage in less than an hour of physical activity per day and have more than 8 friends. For the average Finnish elderly person, we could observe that he/she uses the Internet on a daily basis and has more than 8 friends, while the average Slovenian elderly person uses the Internet rarely or weekly, has 3 to 4 friends and does not search for positive effects of physical activity. Additionally, elderly people (mostly Slovenian) who have 5 to 8 friends, engage in less than 30 minutes of physical activity per day, and elderly people (mostly Slovenian) who have fewer than 3 friends do search for positive effects of physical activity.
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Figure 1. Correspondence analyses of variables “country”, “finding positive effects of physical activity”, “number of friends”, “Internet use”, and “time devoted to physical activity”. Discussion The purpose of the present study was to find the outcomes of an ICT interaction on the social and physical activity of elderly people. While the data revealed differences between the countries which could be a result of different cultures and study settings (homes for the elderly in Slovenia, Community College in Finland), it is also a fact that, at the baseline, elderly people in Finland were more ICT literate compared to the Slovene elderly. However, according to EU statistical reports, more Finnish households are equipped with Internet than their Slovenian counterparts. Additionally, the elderly in Finland spontaneously look for ICT training, and in Slovenia, the elderly were motivated through a European project. In general, there are differences between the countries in the engagement in physical activity: the Finnish elderly are physically very active, and computer interaction did not have a significant effect on their attitude toward physical activity, while fewer Slovene elderly were physically active before engaging in computer interaction, and they significantly increased their physical activity as a result of the information they retrieved via computer about a healthy lifestyle and the importance of physical activity in old age. It should be noted that the Slovene elderly who participated in the study lived in institutional care (homes for the elderly), and they generally have fewer options of socializing. For these elderly people, the computer presented a way of communicating with friends and family and therefore they found more friends than the Finnish elderly, who are more active and involved in society. The results also showed that elderly people living alone are more physically active (30–60 minutes per day) than those who live with a partner (1 hour per week or not active at all). However, when comparing both studies and country variables, we did not find any significant change in the social inclusion of elderly people before or after engaging in computer interaction. That is a little disappointing, especially because we detected changes in the frequency of maintaining social networks. Therefore, more quantitative studies about the social inclusion of elderly people are needed to be able to confirm any statistically significant changes in developing and maintaining social networks among the elderly through ICT use. We did not detect a pessimistic view among the elderly regarding the use of computer, such as was mentioned by Pieri and Diamantinir who collected various elderly’s stories before, during and after ICT training. The study showed two different elderly’s perspectives; optimistic view, which implies that ICT enhanced elderly’s ability to communicate and pessimistic view, implying that ICT could decrease the quality of communications between elderly11. However, we noticed more enthusiasm among the elderly who were less ICT literate. Karahasanović et al. showed that social networks help maintain and develop friendships among the elderly, which we could partly confirm. In Finland, the correlation coefficient between the number of friends and social network use showed a directly proportional correlation, while among the Slovenian elderly there was an inversely proportional correlation. We cannot generalize the effects of social network use on the socialization of elderly people. In contrast to Slegers et al., we were able to show increased physical activity among elderly people in Slovenia after the ICT interaction course. Karahasanović et al. showed that after computer interaction, the more social elderly even expanded their
NI2012: 11th International Congress on Nursing Informatics 29
social networks, and the isolated elderly do not want to be involved in society with or without computer interaction. The present study showed the exact opposite: more or less isolated elderly people living in elderly homes significantly increased their social networks and were able to renew and establish new relationships, in comparison to very active elderly people who were active before the ICT interaction and did not use the advantages which ICT and computers offer. However, there are two limitations that need to be acknowledged and considered: first, the small number of participants and second, the different ICT training settings in the two countries. Most elderly people think that working with computers brings a great advantage to their lives; and so the integration of elderly people with technology is necessary in future. The original contributions of the article are evidence of significant correlations between (1) number of friends before and after ICT interaction for the elderly; (2) time devoted to physical activity and frequency of Internet use by the elderly; and (3) frequency of Internet use and frequency of social network use by the elderly. Another contribution of the paper is the use of MCA in analyzing the associations between various aspects of ICT engagement by the elderly and their quality of life. We show that to a large extent, such visual analysis could improve the analysis of multi-dimensional data and enable concise and alternative insights into that data. Conclusion Practice, educational institutions and other facilities for elderly people should focus on looking for opportunities of involving ICT in elderly people’s lives in an appropriate way, so that it could positively affect their well-being, life satisfaction, feeling of achievement, feeling of self-control and general enrichment of life. The present study showed promising results, suggesting that ICT could help elderly people to cope with their everyday life situations. Therefore, regional, local and governmental organizations are obligated to provide the right conditions, such as adapted computer equipment, Internet access, appropriate ICT education, highly qualified computer experts, etc., all of which will help the elderly to adopt ICT for a healthy and fulfilling ageing. Acknowledgement Financial support for the PRIMER-ICT project was provided by the European Commission under Agreement number 2008-4279/001-001, project number 143665-LLP-1-2008-1-SI-KA3-KA3MP. The first author would like to thank all the elderly people who participated in the research study in Slovenia and Finland, Kuopion kansalaisopisto (Kuopio Community College), Kuopio, Finland, and the Sunny Home and Danica Vogrinec Maribor homes for the elderly in Maribor, Slovenia. References 1. 2.
Lewis S, Ariyachandra T. Seniors and online social network use. CONISAR 2010: 1-15. Hernandez-Encuentra E, Pousada M, Gomez-Zuniga B. ICT and older people: beyond usability. Educational Gerontology 2009; 35: 226-245. 3. Mental Health Foundation. What is social inclusion and why is it so important? Like minds, line mine 2007; 30. 4. Fokkema T, Knipscheer K. Escape loneliness by going digital: A quantitative and qualitative evaluation of a Dutch experiment in using ECT to overcome loneliness among older adults. Aging & Mental Health 2007; 11 (5): 496-504. 5. Nahm E-S, Resnick B, Gaines J. Testing the reliability and validity of computer-mediated social support measures among older adults. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing 2004; 22 (4): 211-219. 6. Hill R, Beynon-Davies P, Williams MD. Older people and internet engagement. Information Technology & People 2008; 21 (3): 244-266. 7. Karahasanović A, Brandtzæg PB, Heim J, Lőders M, Vermeir L, Pierson J, Lievens B, Vanattenhoven J, Jans G. Co-creation and user-generated content – elderly people’s user requirements. Computers in Human Behavior 2009; 25: 655-678. 8. White H, McConnell E, Clipp E, Branch LG, Sloane R, Pieper C, Box TL. A randomized controlled trial of the psychosocial impact of providing internet training and access to older adults. Aging & Mental Health 2002; 6 (3): 213-221. 9. Slegers K, van Boxtel MPJ, Jolles J. Effects of computer training and internet usage on the well-being and quality of life of older adults: A randomized controlled study. The Journals of Gerontology 2008; 63B: 176-184. 10. Koopman-Boyden PG, Reid SL. Internet/E-mail usage and well-being among 65-84 year olds in New Zealand: Policy implications. Education Gerontology 2009; 35: 990-1007. 11. Pieri M, Diamantinir D. Young people, elderly and ICT. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 2010; 2: 2422-2426.
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recreational activities. Elderly people aged 65 or more who used the Internet were typically more likely than nonusers to participate in a wide range of recreational activities (outdoor activities)10. Despite the fact that there are evidence-based studies on elderly people’s ICT engagement and its effects on their social lives and physical activity, they are mainly suggestive and not representative. The present interventional quasi-experimental study in Slovenia and Finland focused on the social life style changes of the elderly before and after ICT interaction. In this paper, we will discuss how ICT interaction affected the engagement in physical activity, the developing and maintaining the social networks of elderly people, general social inclusion and possible ways of integrating into society. Research questions The main aim of this paper is to investigate how ICT affects elderly people’s social lives and their physical activity. In particular, we were interested in addressing the following questions: 1.
In which way and to what extent has ICT interaction affected elderly people’s physical activity?
2.
To what extent can elderly people establish friendships through ICT interaction?
3.
How do elderly people evaluate their involvement in society before and after ICT interaction?
Answering these questions could help health care professionals who work with elderly people, as well as the family members of elderly people, to understand their social needs and how to overcome the barriers preventing their social inclusion with the help of ICT. Materials and methods An international interventional quasi-experimental research study was performed in Slovenia and in Finland, before and after computer interaction initiated during the ICT training courses, with 58 elderly people who participated in the first study and 45 elderly who participated in the second study. The mean age of the participants in the first study was 72.41 years (SD=9.15) and that in the second research study 72.96 years (SD=9.25). Prior to the study, the elderly were informed that participation in the study is voluntary and could be refused at any time and that the results of the research would only be used for research purposes. In both research studies the majority of the participants were female (60% female, 40% male), and the majority of the Finnish participants had completed vocational school, in contrast to the Slovene elderly, the majority of whom had completed high school. Additionally, there was a difference in applying to the ICT courses: in Finland the elderly had more self-initiative, as they applied spontaneously within the Kuopio Community College. In Slovenia, the elderly people were invited to participate in ICT training events organized within the European project PRIMER-ICT. The Finnish participants live mainly in apartments and the Slovene participants live in homes for the elderly, but in addition own their own houses. All live more or less independently; the number of Slovene participants needing help from other people was slightly higher (approx. 10%). The purpose of this study was to analyze the difference in the frequency of physical and social activity before and after 3 weeks of the ICT interaction. Elderly people in Slovenia participated in ICT training course one a week for 3 hours, and in Finland once a week for 4 hours. At the beginning of the ICT training elderly people were acquainted with computer equipment, learned basic ICT skills, learned how to browse the Internet and search different information. ICT interaction included plenary sessions, ICT training and possibilities for discussion. We therefore developed two research questionnaires, divided into three parts: background information part, quality of life part and quality of life in connection to ICT use part. All data were collected by the first author, who has access to the results. Both questionnaires consist of open-ended, close-ended and combined open-close-ended questions, and in this paper we focus only on questions relating to physical activity, number of friendships gained and general social inclusion. The data were analyzed by using the IBM SPSS Statistics 19 software to perform descriptive statistics: frequencies, cross tabulations, mean values and the following inferential statistics: Chi-square tests, correspondence analyses and Spearman’s correlation. Findings Effects of ICT interaction on elderly’s physical activity The study findings showed that only 20% of the Finnish and 26.9% of the Slovene elderly people found positive effects on physical activity via computers, and only 30% of the Slovene elderly think that the information was of benefit to them, in the sense that before engaging in computer interaction they were not at all active physically and
NI2012: 11th International Congress on Nursing Informatics 27
after working with computers they were. All of the Finnish elderly people were physically active before the ICT interaction, and the situation after engaging in computer interaction did not change at all. The number of elderly people who devoted one hour per day to physical activity increased after engaging in computer interaction (Finnish elderly from 40% to 52.9%, Slovene elderly from 29% to 66.7%). Additionally, the percentage of those who were not at all active physically increased in Finland from the first to the second study (from 12% to 17.6%), while the percentage of Slovene elderly who were not physically active decreased (from 12.9% to 7.4%). With the Chi-square test we found a significant relation among the Slovene elderly between the time devoted to physical activity and the answer Yes or No to the question whether the elderly searched for information about the positive effects of physical activity (p= 0.029). On the other hand, the Mann-Whitney test did not reveal a significant difference between the time devoted to physical activity and searching for information about the positive effects of physical activity among all participants (p=0.089), or separately for each country (Finland: p=0.304; Slovenia: p=0.193). Overall, the findings associated with the first research question imply that computer interaction could positively affect elderly’s physical activity. Effects of ICT interaction on elderly’s social activity Results connected to the second research question showed, that after engaging in computer interaction, the elderly people were able to establish friendships with other people. The Finnish elderly got acquainted with 2 to 5 (M=3.67 friends; SD=1.21) and the Slovene elderly with 0 to 30 (M=6.11 friends; SD=10.09) new friends. Using the nonparametric Spearman’s correlation test, we found that in Slovenia, the elderly who are socially active with computers actually increased their ability to develop and maintain their personal networks (p=0.025). However, the results associated with the third research question imply that the elderly people’s perception of social inclusion did not change before or after computer interaction. We did not find any statistical difference in social inclusion comparing the first and second studies, Slovene and Finnish elderly people, nor any difference in how males and females perceived social inclusion. Spearman’s correlation also showed that in Finland, the physical activity of the elderly is in an inverse proportion to Internet use (r=−0.374; p=0.065) and online social networks (r=−0.036; p=0.921), while in Slovenia, the connection between physical activity and frequency of Internet use is directly proportional and even significant (r=0.443; p=0.027). In Finland, the connection between the number of friends and time devoted to physical activity is directly proportional and significant (r=0.377; p=0.037), while in Slovenia it is inversely proportional (r=−0.083; p=0.558). We also found a significant correlation in the frequency of Internet use and social network use by the Slovene elderly people (p=0.002); on the other hand, we did not find a significant correlation between Internet and social network use among the Finnish elderly people. Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) is used, among others, to graphically present categorical data (cases and categories), so that objects within the same category are close together and objects in different categories are far apart, dividing the objects into homogeneous subgroups within categories. We performed the MCA on the variables “Country”, “How many friends do you have?”, “How often do you use the Internet?”, “Time devoted to physical activity?”, “Did you find positive effects regarding physical activity through the computer?”. The joint variable plot is shown in Figure 1. After a careful analysis of Figure 1 and naming the dimensions, we see that Dimension 1 discriminates between the countries, so Dimension 1 could be “Country”, but no clear discrimination could be deduced for Dimension 2. We have two outliers not associated with any groupings, namely “Monthly” internet use, and “Less than 10 minutes” of physical activity per day. The average categories are “No” search for positive effects of physical activity, “Less than 1 hour” of physical activity per day and “More than 8 friends”, which together form the following average association: Elderly people who do not search for positive effects of physical activity engage in less than an hour of physical activity per day and have more than 8 friends. For the average Finnish elderly person, we could observe that he/she uses the Internet on a daily basis and has more than 8 friends, while the average Slovenian elderly person uses the Internet rarely or weekly, has 3 to 4 friends and does not search for positive effects of physical activity. Additionally, elderly people (mostly Slovenian) who have 5 to 8 friends, engage in less than 30 minutes of physical activity per day, and elderly people (mostly Slovenian) who have fewer than 3 friends do search for positive effects of physical activity.
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Figure 1. Correspondence analyses of variables “country”, “finding positive effects of physical activity”, “number of friends”, “Internet use”, and “time devoted to physical activity”. Discussion The purpose of the present study was to find the outcomes of an ICT interaction on the social and physical activity of elderly people. While the data revealed differences between the countries which could be a result of different cultures and study settings (homes for the elderly in Slovenia, Community College in Finland), it is also a fact that, at the baseline, elderly people in Finland were more ICT literate compared to the Slovene elderly. However, according to EU statistical reports, more Finnish households are equipped with Internet than their Slovenian counterparts. Additionally, the elderly in Finland spontaneously look for ICT training, and in Slovenia, the elderly were motivated through a European project. In general, there are differences between the countries in the engagement in physical activity: the Finnish elderly are physically very active, and computer interaction did not have a significant effect on their attitude toward physical activity, while fewer Slovene elderly were physically active before engaging in computer interaction, and they significantly increased their physical activity as a result of the information they retrieved via computer about a healthy lifestyle and the importance of physical activity in old age. It should be noted that the Slovene elderly who participated in the study lived in institutional care (homes for the elderly), and they generally have fewer options of socializing. For these elderly people, the computer presented a way of communicating with friends and family and therefore they found more friends than the Finnish elderly, who are more active and involved in society. The results also showed that elderly people living alone are more physically active (30–60 minutes per day) than those who live with a partner (1 hour per week or not active at all). However, when comparing both studies and country variables, we did not find any significant change in the social inclusion of elderly people before or after engaging in computer interaction. That is a little disappointing, especially because we detected changes in the frequency of maintaining social networks. Therefore, more quantitative studies about the social inclusion of elderly people are needed to be able to confirm any statistically significant changes in developing and maintaining social networks among the elderly through ICT use. We did not detect a pessimistic view among the elderly regarding the use of computer, such as was mentioned by Pieri and Diamantinir who collected various elderly’s stories before, during and after ICT training. The study showed two different elderly’s perspectives; optimistic view, which implies that ICT enhanced elderly’s ability to communicate and pessimistic view, implying that ICT could decrease the quality of communications between elderly11. However, we noticed more enthusiasm among the elderly who were less ICT literate. Karahasanović et al. showed that social networks help maintain and develop friendships among the elderly, which we could partly confirm. In Finland, the correlation coefficient between the number of friends and social network use showed a directly proportional correlation, while among the Slovenian elderly there was an inversely proportional correlation. We cannot generalize the effects of social network use on the socialization of elderly people. In contrast to Slegers et al., we were able to show increased physical activity among elderly people in Slovenia after the ICT interaction course. Karahasanović et al. showed that after computer interaction, the more social elderly even expanded their
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social networks, and the isolated elderly do not want to be involved in society with or without computer interaction. The present study showed the exact opposite: more or less isolated elderly people living in elderly homes significantly increased their social networks and were able to renew and establish new relationships, in comparison to very active elderly people who were active before the ICT interaction and did not use the advantages which ICT and computers offer. However, there are two limitations that need to be acknowledged and considered: first, the small number of participants and second, the different ICT training settings in the two countries. Most elderly people think that working with computers brings a great advantage to their lives; and so the integration of elderly people with technology is necessary in future. The original contributions of the article are evidence of significant correlations between (1) number of friends before and after ICT interaction for the elderly; (2) time devoted to physical activity and frequency of Internet use by the elderly; and (3) frequency of Internet use and frequency of social network use by the elderly. Another contribution of the paper is the use of MCA in analyzing the associations between various aspects of ICT engagement by the elderly and their quality of life. We show that to a large extent, such visual analysis could improve the analysis of multi-dimensional data and enable concise and alternative insights into that data. Conclusion Practice, educational institutions and other facilities for elderly people should focus on looking for opportunities of involving ICT in elderly people’s lives in an appropriate way, so that it could positively affect their well-being, life satisfaction, feeling of achievement, feeling of self-control and general enrichment of life. The present study showed promising results, suggesting that ICT could help elderly people to cope with their everyday life situations. Therefore, regional, local and governmental organizations are obligated to provide the right conditions, such as adapted computer equipment, Internet access, appropriate ICT education, highly qualified computer experts, etc., all of which will help the elderly to adopt ICT for a healthy and fulfilling ageing. Acknowledgement Financial support for the PRIMER-ICT project was provided by the European Commission under Agreement number 2008-4279/001-001, project number 143665-LLP-1-2008-1-SI-KA3-KA3MP. The first author would like to thank all the elderly people who participated in the research study in Slovenia and Finland, Kuopion kansalaisopisto (Kuopio Community College), Kuopio, Finland, and the Sunny Home and Danica Vogrinec Maribor homes for the elderly in Maribor, Slovenia. References 1. 2.
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