The Department of Kinesiology and Community Health
College of Applied Health Sciences
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New Technology Project
The main purpose of the New Technology project is to understand how older adults interact with new technologies and to develop a new technology adoption/acceptance model for older adults. Although we can assume that technology can improve older adults' quality of life, only a small percentage of older adults have been using new some sort of technology. Yet, we do not specifically know how certain technologies work for improving the quality of life for older adults. This fact is the starting point of this project. We are currently exploring four different categories of technology, a simple/complex version of TV remote controls and a simple/complex version of commercially available step counters. Our research explores such factors as technology anxiety, self-efficacy, previous experience, confidence, education, gender, emotional response, usefulness, design for older adults, needs, effectiveness, adjustment and the subjective meaning of new technologies to older adults.