Abstract
This paper presents several state-of-the-art concepts within Internet studies and applies them to the creative writing of older people using the Internet. For more than 10 years two creative Web users aged 80+, assisted by younger proxy users, were involved in preliminary action research. It was aimed at finding patterns of inducing older people's creativity and sharing their wisdom with the general Internet audience. The effectiveness of conducted action research in transferring wisdom using silver digital content is high. It is demonstrated with (a) qualitative participants' insights, (b) the quantitative description of statistics of blog visits, and (c) the social significance of the topics covered in the created content. Lasting for more than a decade and located within the space of socio-technological solutions in Central and Eastern Europe, the results delivered patterns of emerging technologies aimed at enhancing older people's creativity on the Web. The insights from those two action-based case studies enabled the development of new hypotheses. New directions of further, more advanced research of older users' activity are based on interdisciplinary studies at the crossroads of public health, sociological theory, gerontology, and human-computer interaction studies. New research questions are presented, to be explored within the social scientific studies of the next-generation Internet. Departing from the established concepts and preliminary research, the authors hypothesize that: (1) in order to optimize non-human technology-based assistants, human proxy users should be researched; (2) voice assistant technology could become the primary proxy for a production of silver digital content; and (3) interactive and intelligent technology will be the substitute for social actors that prevent exclusion and disengagement. The remaining research question also refers to the conditions under which the technology can be a viable substitute for proxy users.
Highlights
The aging population is not sufficiently self-represented in social media
The results of preliminary action research on the creative writing and publishing of older people are helpful in developing the concept of so-called “silver digital content,” first presented in literary studies focused on creative
There is no lack of proven opinion leaders among senior citizens, but there is a lack of digital skills and in effect unavailability of social media interfaces for older people
Summary
The aging population is not sufficiently self-represented in social media. Why do senior citizens not write and publish online, and in effect disengage from larger digital public sphere? In terms of disengagement and activity, there should be space for consistent and enjoyable activity in the lives of aging people. For people aged 85 or more and publishing on the Web (digital sages 80+) creative writing results in social media connection and new media inclusion It is mainly an expression of intergenerational transfer in which seniors’ wisdom matches the digital competences of their younger cooperators. A digitally wise human can creatively find himself in the space of the Internet, not so much because of their fluency in using hardware and software that publishes content, but mainly through the interesting content resulting from the experience to convey Sharing by such experiences of immigrant-seniors is possible through the cooperation of digital natives who could handle hardware and software tools for them. The condition for the existence of such cooperation, is the awareness of the importance of the digital world in the hierarchy of the digital immigrant’s values—even though their decision is to engage in Internet communication, and not, for example, writing letters to the editor
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