Purpose: This study explores digital risk perceptions – the perception of risk related to digital environments – among older adults. Specifically, it investigates how these risk perceptions influence older adults’ frequency of digital engagement in everyday activities. Design/methodology/approach: The research methodology involved conducting 22 interviews and administering 708 surveys among older adults living at home. The researchers examined how digital risk perceptions influenced older adults’ frequency of engagement in everyday digital activities. The study also explored the mediating role of digital risk perceptions in the relationship between older adults’ digital competencies and the frequency of everyday digital engagement. Findings: The study identified six distinct categories of digital risk perceptions among older adults. Furthermore, it found that older adults’ digital competencies significantly impacted the frequency of everyday digital engagement. However, certain digital risk perceptions, particularly those related to privacy and security concerns and concerns about financial impact, mediated the relationship between digital competencies and the frequency of everyday digital engagement. Older adults’ frequency of participating in digital activities was influenced by perceptions of risk, highlighting the complex interplay between digital competencies and digital risk perception in shaping older adults’ engagement with everyday digital activities. Originality/value: This study contributes to understanding older adults’ engagement in everyday digital activities by delineating six specific categories of digital risk perceptions. By identifying the mediating role of digital risk perceptions, particularly regarding privacy, security and financial concerns, the study sheds light on the nuanced factors influencing older adults’ willingness to participate digitally, which adds nuance and extends knowledge on digital and social inclusion among older adults.

There is growing unease and a sense within the design community of the value placed on efficient, simplified, and seamless interactions, with a growing awareness and documentation of their unintended consequences across society. By prioritizing ‘frictionless’ finance, healthcare, education products, and services, there has been a consorted effort to reduce or eliminate our daily frictions in the pursuit of efficiency and ease of use. The role of friction, however, is more nuanced than this, with a growing appreciation for designing with frictions: leveraging features usually considered problematic or exploring the benefits, barriers, and complexity beyond hindering users. In seeking a more balanced understanding of friction in systems design, this workshop will offer ways of bringing friction to the fore of design and examining its role across the domains of care, privacy, security, repairability, and autonomous vehicles. Participants will contribute to an exhibition of frictions before taking part in sessions that will unpack digital systems, identify frictions, and examine the ethical ambiguities posed by the addition or removal of friction in particular contexts. In employing the concept of friction as a critical and constructive design lens, we seek to develop further a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) agenda for future discourse that inverts and provokes preconceptions and assumptions of a seamless digital landscape.

As digital inclusion becomes a growing indicator of wellbeing in later life, the ability to understand older adults’ preferences for information and communication technologies (ICTs) and develop strategies to support their digital literacy is critical. The barriers older adults face include their perceived ICT risks and capacity to learn. Complexities, including ICT environmental stressors and societal norms, may require concerted engagement with older adults to achieve higher digital literacy competencies. This article describes the results of a series of co-design workshops to develop strategies for increased ICT competencies and reduced perceived risks among older adults. Engaging older Australians in three in-person workshops (each workshop consisting of 15 people), this study adapted the “Scenario Personarrative Method” to illustrate the experiences of people with technology and rich pictures of the strategies seniors employ. Through the enrichment of low-to-high-digital-literacy personas and mapping workshop participant responses to several scenarios, the workshops contextualized the different opportunities and barriers seniors may face, offering a useful approach toward collaborative strategy development. We argued that in using co-designed persona methods, scholars can develop more nuance in generating ICT risk strategies that are built with and for older adults. By allowing risks to be contextualized through this approach, we illustrated the novelty of adapting the Scenario Personarrative Method to provide insights into perceived barriers and to build skills, motivations, and strategies toward enhancing digital literacy.

The ability of older adults to engage with information and communication technologies (ICT) is crucial in today’s more digital and connected world. Anxiety about and failure to adopt and engage with ICT is increasingly likely to be a barrier in daily living for older adults, potentially reducing their freedom as consumers, quality of life, independence, and wellbeing. It may also be a significant factor in social and economic exclusion. Drawing on consumer behaviour, ICT theories and frameworks, and a quantitative survey of 706 older Australian adults, this paper examines factors influencing anxiety in engaging with ICT. Our findings show that perceived anxiety was associated with increased subjective norms or when others placed pressure on older people to engage more with ICT and when older adults perceived increased risks associated with ICT engagement. Conversely, reduced levels of perceived anxiety were correlated with a positive attitude towards ICT and when older people had the technical and cognitive resources to adopt and engage with ICT. The results highlight the importance of building, renewing, and reinforcing digital competencies in older consumers. Understanding factors associated with ICT-related anxiety means that organisations will be better placed to develop campaigns, products, programmes, and policies for older consumers that actively reduce anxiety, increase their use of ICT, and reduce the digital divide.

Long COVID, also known as Post COVID-19 condition, is defined by the WHO as the continuation or development of new symptoms three months after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection, with these symptoms lasting for at least two months with no other explanation. Despite many studies examining the causes and mechanisms of this disease, fewer studies have sought to understand the experience of those suffering from long COVID, or "long-haulers," This study contributes to the understanding of long-haulers (N = 14) by examining the role of agency and social support in shaping their journeys with long COVID. Drawing on a combination of interviews, questionnaires, and video diaries over a three-month period, journey mapping was used to document the participants' experiences, including symptoms, coping strategies, and lifestyle changes. Analysis of these journey maps resulted in a framework with four clusters demonstrating the importance of social support and patient agency shaping participants' Long COVID trajectory; the study contributes valuable insights into the daily lives and challenges individuals face with long COVID, informing the development of targeted support programs.