Older people show more common practices with younger ones than most people might think, but they also show some distinct ones that express their own patterns of use.
This is one of the overall results yielded in a new article authored by Andrea Rosales and Mireia Fernández-Ardèvol. Their study focused on the usage patterns of smartphones among a wide age range of people living in Spain. They combined results from quantitative data tracking the use of smartphone apps with focus groups data of users between 55 and 81 years old to get an enhanced view of the use of these devices.
Although they find that as users age the frequency of use declines, older users show distinct patterns as to which apps they use, how often, and where they access them is concerned. The authors draw attention to future research steps regarding smartphone usage across generations and stress the need to include more older people in studies addressing this topic.
The article was published in a special issue of the Romanian Journal of Communication and Public Relations, an issue in which most of the studies published alongside have received the support of the ACT Project.
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Image by r. nial bradshaw under a CC BY 2.0 license
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