How to remain included? A critical perspective on an ICT-nursing home with an active ageing ideology

Old persons in nursing homes suffer from complex diseases, pain and the loss of physical and cognitive functions. They embody the notion of the ‘fourth age’ (Higgs & Gilleard 2015), as recipients of professionally organised care, meals and activities. People in nursing homes are also part of a media society (Deuze 2011) in which digital technologies (ICT) are highly profiled and have become a regular feature of everyday life. This paper analyses consequences for social life in a nursing home that employs the vision to promote active and healthy ageing through ICT. The empirical material is constructed through fieldwork in a Danish municipal nursing home in winter 2014-15; notes, photos, voice and video recordings and qualitative interviews with residents and others. This paper is mainly concerned with residents’ and staff’s use of electronic boards and tablets; the so-called ‘well-being tablets’. Theoretically, the analysis rests on two pillars: A critical discourse analysis (Arribas-Ayllon & Walkerdine 2017) of the nursing home’s vision and an ethnographic account (Jackson 2010) of how ICT is implemented in the everyday lives of residents. The findings show that technology is discursively presented as a liberating force that transcends bodily and cognitive decline. But in fact, very few residents communicate with staff, family or others through digital devices. As the implementation of ICT has gone hand in hand with staff reduction, particularly residents with dementia are hereby excluded from social engagement, as their functioning is too reduced to benefit from the technological structure of the institution. To conclude, the study reveals how new ICT can compromise the autonomy of old residents and reduce their social engagement and capability. This is quite contrary to the intentions of politicians and managers who promote and implement new technologies as a vehicle for ageing actively, incl. in social aspects of life. The study is part of a larger study on media and ageing at University of Copenhagen, Denmark that has been supported by the Velux Foundations.