Willingness and performance of older adults using Information and Communication Technologies for cognitive activity and social interaction

This study is part of a project aimed at designing a learning intervention to enable older Costa Ricans to use Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for enhancing cognitive activity and social interaction. This paper presents some results of the designed learning intervention related to participants' willingness to include the proposed activities with ICT in their daily routines, adequateness of ICT applications to support older adults' ICT use for cognitive activity and social interaction, and participants' performance in the designed cognitive and social activities. The learning intervention focused on stimulating autobiographical memory (ABM) and training cognitive abilities such as attention, flexibility, problem solving and memory while having social interaction with peers. Forty-one older adults used online social platforms for sharing personal reminiscences and played online cognitive games to train cognitive abilities. Results showed that participants were willing and able to accomplish the cognitive activities freely and independently during the learning intervention period and beyond that period. Content analysis indicated that most of the shared reminiscences were specific personal memories from participants' childhood, which accomplished the social function of reminiscence by creating empathy and social cohesion among participants. Participants improved performance in online cognitive games by repetitive practice. In a linear mixed effect model analysis, the number of times played had a statistically significant effect on performance improvement, whereas factors such as age, education, and positive attitude towards technology did not. Results suggested that this type of intervention can be beneficial for older adults from several cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds and a potential avenue for cost effective interventions aimed to reduce the risks of cognitive impairment and social isolation.