Smart Campus Bridges the Digital Divide: A Case Study at Shanghai University for the Elderly

• In Event: Learning of Aging Population in Technology-Rich Environments During the COVID-19 Era

Abstract

Digital transformation has fundamentally changed the living attitude and behavior of people, especially under the circumstance of the COVID-19 crisis. During the current worldwide pandemic, older adults are particularly excluded from online digital society. How can we make the fullest use of technology and empower the aged population to live a better life by virtue of these technologies? The case study aims to examine the smart campus of Shanghai University for the Elderly (SHUE, 2021) and to explore how elderly learners can better-live a digital life through senior education and situational learning during the pandemic era.

The increasing popularity of digitization has exacerbated the digital divide among the elderly, who have low usage of smart devices. One representative study in the US found that 33% of people 65 years and older were ‘excluded’ from online society (Anderson et al., 2019); and Hunsaker & Hargittai (2018) found that a digital gap between younger and older adults had caused social inequality. How to help the elderly bridge the digital gap has become a global issue.

In China, the majority of the non-netizens (i.e., non-Internet users) were the elderly aged 60 and above. China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported that people of 60+ years accounted for 32.20% of 2020’s population (Office of the Seventh National Census Leading Group of The State Council, 2021; Lu & Lin, 2021). People over 60 years old accounted for 39.70% of the population in Shanghai (Qi Ai Home, 2022). Senior citizens are the most vulnerable cohort in an era of everything being connected by the Internet (Li, 2019).

SHUE plays a critical role to help seniors experience and learn the latest technologies (Dong, 2017). The SHUE smart campus has five teaching scenes and each is named as an island to serve several certain intelligent functions: 1) The Joy-Sharing Island, equipped with a 5G technology, transforms learners’ performances from the ‘green curtain’ to a virtual stage; 2) The Modern Life Island helps the elderly experience the latest smart-home and intelligent devices by turning routine chores into a kind of joy; 3) The High-Tech Island allows senior citizens the opportunity to experience Virtual Reality (VR) for learning; 4) The Health Island (aka, the Intelligent Life Experience Room) and its advanced medical devices allows learners to experience the ever-changing new world through the 5G health cloud system; and 5) The Financial Island is a classroom where learners learn how to manage bank account and financial investment through mobile devices.

This qualitative study used a semi-structured interview to study 10 seniors (five males and five females, aged from 65 to 75 years) for the 2021 fall semester. Qualitative themes justify the rationale and principles of creating the smart campus. Findings showed that 1) Experiential learning helps the elderly bridge the digital gap; 2) Education for the elderly should be systematically organized; and 3) the smart campus is people-oriented rather than tech-focused in serving the elderly. Finally, the study discussed expectations and implementations for the future education of the elder people.

Authors

• Min Wang
  Presenting Author

• Ying Kuang
  Presenting Author