The Impacts of Digital Technologies on Successful Aging in Non-Work and Work Domains: An Organizing Taxonomy

Abstract

Abstract Digital technology, broadly defined as all the electronic tools, automatic systems, technological devices, and resources that generate, process, or store information in the form of binary code (Shah, Nogueras, Van Woerden, & Kiparoglou, 2019), has brought great changes to almost all aspects of human life. In particular, the development and the application of various digital technologies have great potential to facilitate successful aging by helping individuals effectively cope with different forms of age-related challenges, though an organizing framework is lacking from the literature. In this paper, we derive a taxonomy for understanding the impacts of digital technology on successful aging by considering the intersections between digital technology types and the age-related applied settings. Based on this taxonomy, we map different types of digital technology to different functions and successful aging outcomes in both non-work and work domains. We also discuss the implications of our taxonomy to research inquiries and practical applications.