Futures of smart-home technology for older adults

Researching technological future scenarios for the older population.

Consultancies, governments, and the technology industry try to anticipate and quantify future technology pathways. These studies often exclude older people in the design of technological futures, which biases the development of products. In response to this, my research aims to problematize those visions through empirical ethnographic encounters with older people.

In my review of industry, governmental, and NGO reports, I found there is an excessive focus on health or surveillance technologies that patronize older people. A critical anthropological analysis suggests that the narratives are mainly economic: e.g. we need to sustain economically shrinking taxpayers, replace the lack of caregivers with technology, and foster aging in place. Given the focus on ‘home’, I pay attention to smart-home technologies: e.g. voice assistant devices, smart sensors in floors and toilets, robots, health wearables, etc. that monitor frailty or falls ─entailing strong privacy and trust issues.

In a nutshell, my goal is to study future smart-home technologies from a policy-making and industry perspective and compare it ethnographically with older people’s views and values about trust and privacy. My methods are observations, in-depth interviews, and video tours in older Australian households and nursing homes, in addition to speculative workshops. The participants are culturally and linguistically diverse given that I speak Russian, Spanish, and English.

The implications of my research are for companies that develop technology for older people and governments that look for solutions to aging societies. They will understand what older people want about future technology, how they link their values to technologies, and ways to democratize technologies

Contact: Miguel Gomez Hernandez

Email: miguel.gomezhernandez@monash.edu