In Spain, 27.3% of people over the age of 65 state that they have never accessed the Internet, a figure that shows the social challenge facing the digital divide that exists between generations.
App Connect Major 2.0 is a project that addresses the consequences of this digital fracture: exclusion, social isolation, fear of dependency, deterioration of mental health and loss of quality of life. Its creators belong to Conecta Mayor, a foundation of the Catholic University of Chile, and they understood that these concerns could be addressed through technology.
we have talked with edward bullexecutive director of Conecta Mayor to explain all the details of this initiative, which is also a finalist for the Fundación MAPFRE Awards for Social Innovation.
Social inclusion also requires digital inclusion, because everything happens through technology
technology for seniors
Toro explains how the idea “was born in the midst of a pandemic, with the challenge of include older people in today’s society. This social inclusion also requires digital inclusion. Because everything happens through technology.”
Added to this context is “the confinement, which kept us all locked up in our homes.” At that time, “we realized that the feeling of exclusion of this group, by not being able to connect through digital channels”.
We delivered 80,000 mobile phones specially designed for them
First steps
In September 2020, Conecta Mayor emerged, “with the aim of reaching a segment of older people with high vulnerability indexeshand in hand with municipalities and local governments throughout the country”.
In its first performance, “we work with 97% of the communes or municipalities of Chile. what we did was deliver 80,000 mobile phones specially designed for them, with a gerontological approach”.
It didn’t have to be just for vulnerable seniors or tied to a team
Not only for vulnerable population
Learning from that experience, “we realize that many people without socioeconomic difficulties they also wanted to access the opportunity to connect intuitively through their device, both with their loved ones -their socio-affective network-, as well as with their local network or emergency contacts”.
This is where the idea arises that the solution “did not have to be for vulnerable older people and it did not necessarily have to be linked to a team, to a cellular tool. This is how we began to design, hand in hand with older people and gerontologists and experts, App Mayor”.
for any mobile
Toro explains: “Basically, it is an application that can be installed on any phone and changes the interface to an intuitive one, specially designed” for this segment of the population.
Its features include big buttons, which allow you to make direct calls, communicate with relatives or access multiple services. It also has colors, contrasts, large font sizes, designed for people with vision problems.
“the world gets old. The young population decreases, life expectancy also increases. And we are not taking on this challenge”, affirms Toro, who points out that it is a project that goes far beyond the current situation: “No one is saved from this, we all grow old. Here I am working not only for a particular population, but also aimed at the entire society, the elderly of today and those of the future”.
bureaucratic exclusion
“In Chile, 86% of procedures are digitized”, explains Bull. “And the goal is that by 2025 they will be 100%.” The consequence, according to his words, is that “a group is left out. And in it is the older population. We have had many meetings with different organizations and the services that are closest to this segment, to see possibilities and mechanisms to include them”.
In the case of those who have a lower level of digitization, they bet on “special possibilities of physical attention, but also how we do a path to digitization in a friendly way. That they are not 25 steps with fine print and asterisks, which is difficult to get to, but that the information is friendlier”.
A process that must be carried out hand in hand with the users themselves: “Design and build together with the elderlywhich is something that has been lacking a lot”.
According to Toro, 25% of this segment in Chile “they feel excluded, but when we talk about loneliness, the figure reaches a little less than 40%. The feeling of loneliness is not that they live alone, but that they do not feel considered.
A situation that “also has an impact on the fact that they stop feeling subject to rights and begin to feel subjects of weaknessof compassion, even of charity, both from the State and from their families”.
A growing problem
A growing problem: “Today, a person who reaches retirement age still has a quarter of his life to live. She is alive, she is interested in participating, voting, giving her opinion, building the city together. Technology clearly helps, it makes no sense to do face-to-face procedures when they can be done digitally. But that improvement has to reach everyone. And for that we have to ensure some nuances that make it inclusive. And not only with the elderly, it has to be taking on the challenge of building the city and society in an inclusive way. The 8/80 criterion: for an 8-year-old child, as for an 80-year-old person”.
