Abstract
‘To discuss digital technologies thus becomes equivalent to asking what existence is’ (p. 3). This is a key premise editors Andrea Rosales, Jakob Svensson, and Mireia Fernández-Ardèvol base their book Digital Ageism: How It Operates and Approaches to Tackling It on. In this volume, collaborators discuss digitalisation through the perspective of age. In 13 chapters they present a theoretic framework (chapters 1 and 2) that focuses on active ageing as a social construct, ageism in the design process and ageism at the symbolic level. Subsequently, the volume begins with a case study of Silicon Valley culture drawing on the ageist perspective (chapter 3), the levels of ageism in the digital industry through an empirical study of interviews (chapter 4), Ivan and Loos’ (2018: 164) ‘visual ageism’ within marketing in the digital industry (chapter 5), human–computer interaction (HCLI) and its inquiries regarding ageism and the digital age (chapter 6). Chapters 7 and 8 offer a better understanding of the interworking of bias and its implications in datasets from digital services using case studies of smart mobility in London (chapter 7) and active ageing discourses on Instagram (chapter 8). Chapter 9 uses intersectionality to understand how older adults are influenced by digital ageism and the social imaginaries placed on them and in chapter 10 how they cope with common stereotypes placed on them. Digital storytelling workshops are used with care home residents. Sarah Wagener and Akiko Ogawa explore how social imaginaries can ‘confront and reproduce forms of deep-seated ageism’ in chapter 11, and in chapter 12 these stereotypes are broken down by showing how face-to-face interactions are complementary to social network platform use in six Latin American countries. In the final chapter, researchers present a methodological reflection on the challenges and implications of social science research on ageing and digital technologies. The volume concludes with reiterating the research questions ‘First, how does ageism operate in hyper-digitised societies? And second, what would be the strategies to tackle ageism?’ (p. 268). It also offers recommendations and directions for further research.