Abstract
This essay provides a critical analysis of the ageing-and-innovation discourse. The ageing-and-innovation discourse is a key rhetorical structure that legitimizes very large investments in technologies for older people. In this discourse, ageing is positioned as an imminent crisis that will affect whole societies, both socially and economically. Investing in technological solutions is, in turn, positioned as a solution that generates benefits on a societal, economical and individual level. This discourse is used to legitimize investment, rally support and reduce uncertainty. We contend that there are three problems with the ageing-and-innovation discourse. First, it legitimizes investment in every technology for older people and thus provides no means of discriminating between useful and non-useful technologies. Second, this discourse presupposes a very negative view of ageing that jars with the positive view of ageing that many older people have, which, in turn, leads to problems with acceptance of these technologies. Third, the ageing-and-innovation discourse creates a moral high ground that makes it hard for opponents to disagree with this discourse. The ageing-and-innovation discourse is a successful rhetorical device, but it ultimately hinders the development of suitable technologies that fit in with the lives of older people and thus needs to be reconsidered by scientists, policy makers and industry.
Highlights
Ageing and the future are intimately related
This essay draws together several lines of thinking we have developed over the years and aims to develop them further by taking a dedicated look at the ageing-and-innovation discourse and its implications for ageing
Problems with appropriation of technologies that are based on such negative images are common as a result, even if the technology can make a real contribution to the lives of older people [43]. This leads to an interesting paradox: the ageing-and-innovation discourse is a rhetorical structure that is used with great success to legitimize the development of technologies for older people
Summary
Ageing and the future are intimately related. When we talk about ageing on a personal level, we often envisage how we will live in years to come. In aged-care and innovation policy, the relation between demographic ageing and the future is widely discussed as inherently problematic, requiring dedicated actions. This is an essay about a type of discourse widely enacted by policy makers, scientists and industry practitioners to frame the relationship between ageing, the future and technology, since problematic accounts of ageing are widely used to justify investments into new technologies and Societies 2017, 7, 26; doi:10.3390/soc7030026 www.mdpi.com/journal/societies. Societies 2017, 7, 26 innovation [1] Because this discourse is central to this essay, it is useful to illustrate it with an example from a widely-cited article in a robotics journal that presents the structure of the dominant discourse in an unfettered way: Demographic projections show a rapidly aging population, with the worldwide proportion of people aged over 60 expected to double between 2000 and 2050. We show that the ageing-and-innovation discourse has profound effects on the way technologies for older people are designed and thereby introduces several problems that lead to technology that is hard to implement in the everyday lives of older people
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