Our Fitbits, our (aging)selves? Digital self-tracking and embodied aging

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At the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show, Samsung surprised business-watchers with a shift in market development plans. Expected to focus on robots, they instead announced a focus on wearable health devices, such as fitness trackers, believing that (according to their CEO) “an aging society will help this market segment grow more quickly”. This article explores the different ways that self-tracking technologies depending on age. For older adults, conversations ten toward mitigating risks, and identifying onsets of, age-related decline.

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October 13: Bridging Research and Public Policy: Matters of Ageing and Technology

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As part of the ACT annual meeting, we are holding a public keynote address and round table discussion at the University of Ottawa. This event will take place on October 13, 2017 in Simard Hall (SMD) 125, located at 60 University Street in Ottawa, Canada.

Dr. Marcel Mérette, Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Ottawa, will provide the keynote address on the topic of  “Public Policy in the Context of Ageing Populations”.

Following this talk, there will be a round table discussion, featuring Mérette once more, as well as a number of researchers working at the intersection of public policy and ageing research, including: Dr. Roxana Barrantes (Institute of Peruvian Studies), Brian Colton (National Research Council Canada), Dr. Jeffrey W. Jutai (University of Ottawa), Dr. Sarah Fraser (University of Ottawa) and ACT’s Dr. Catherine Middleton (Ryerson University).

Bridging Research and Public Policy: Matters of Ageing and Technology
Friday, October 13, 2017
Introduction at 9:00am, keynote at 9:30 am and round table at 10:45 am
Simard Hall (SMD) 125

This is a public event but attendees who are not part of the regular annual ACT meeting should register by emailing admin (at) actproject (dot) ca.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ACT panel selected as a “divisional symposium” at CAG2017

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The ACT Panel titled “Ageing, Communication, Technologies : Experiencing a Digital World in Later Life” has been selected as the divisional symposium for Social Sciences at the Canadian Association of Gerontology Conference (CAG), to be held from October 19 to 21 in Winnipeg, Canada. The panel will take place on October 21 from 11am to 12:30pm in the York room. You can consult the full program here.

Activist ageing and the “tactical theatrics” of RECAA
Kim Sawchuk,Concordia University,
Constance Lafontaine, Concordia University,

Signing, Ageing, Connecting: Intersections of Deafhood, Ageing and Technology
Line Grenier,Université de Montréal
Véronique Leduc, Université du Québec à Montréal

“A blessing and a curse”: Grandmothers reflections on digitally mediated family relationships
Shannon Hebblethwaite, Concordia University
Kelly Leonard, Concordia University

Aging and Technology Assistive Devices: Assessing the Role of Interpersonal Communication in the Context of Transitional Care 
Martine Lagacé, University of Ottawa
Sarah A. Fraser, University of Ottawa

Graduate and Postdoctoral Fellow Symposium: Emerging Research on Later Life

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On October 5, ACT is hosting its first ever graduate student and postdoctoral fellow symposium at the Loyola campus of Concordia University, specifically in the Department of Communication Studies. With the exception of the public keynote by Josephine Dolan, this is a closed event.

SCHEDULE

9:30-10:00 (CJ 2.130) – Welcome and Introductions
Josephine Dolan and Kim Sawchuk

10:00am-11:00am – Exploring and challenging the normativities of later life

Older adults and videogames: at the margins of productivity and play. Exploring the intersecting normative discourses of digital games and ageing
Gabrielle Lavenir

Food Talks: when the successful ageing injunction is being reconfigured through a foodblog
Myriam Durocher

11:15am-12:45pm – Engagements and community connections

Intergenerational Community Connections
Don Rosenbaum and Shayne Zal

Old, crafty and connected: Cercle de Fermières; community and technologies
Nora Tremblay-Lamontagne

 Alternative Approaches to Engage People with Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia Through Imagination, Communication and Methods of Care
Carly McAskill

12:45pm-2:00pm – Lunch

2:00pm – 3:00pm – Aging and other-than-human attachments

Multispecied life courses and the dueling temporalities of bucket list adventures
Constance Lafontaine

 Aging Attachments and the ondes Martenot
David Madden

3:00pm – 3:15pm – Wrap-up

3:30pm-5:00pm (CJ 1.114) – Public Keynote

‘Old age’, gender and the silvering of contemporary Hollywood cinema: economics and ideologies
Josephine Dolan

5:00pm-7:00pm (CJ Atrium) – Reception

Kelly Leonard defending MA thesis on “Exploring Community Inclusion in Older Adulthood through the use of Computers and Tablets”

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Kelly Leonard, a Research Assistant who has been working with ACT for two years, will soon defend her MA thesis titled “Exploring Community Inclusion in Older Adulthood through the use of Computers and Tablets” on August 21 at Concordia University. Her project was supervised by ACT co-applicant Shannon Hebblethwaite.

Exploring Community Inclusion in Older Adulthood through the use of Computers and Tablets

August 21, 2017, 10am
Concordia University, Loyola Campus
VE 317
7141 Sherbrooke Street West

Keep Calm and Reboot: Older Adults’ Experiences of Technostress

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While the manifestation of technostress is common across age, gender and cultural contexts, older adults have very specific challenges. Older adults, despite being the fastest growing segment of ICT users, are often ignored in technostress research, thus very little is known about how they experience and cope with it.

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IAGG World Congress of Gerontology and Geriatrics

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The ACT partnership was very well represented at one of the largest ever conferences in ageing
studies: the IAGG World Congress of Gerontology and Geriatrics, a joint conference hosted by the
International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics (IAGG) and the Gerontological Association of
America (GSA), that took place in San Francisco in July 2017. ACT members presented across a
variety of multidisciplinary panels and symposia throughout the conference.

On the final day, ACT presented a symposium entitled Ageing, the Digital and Everyday Life led by Wendy Martin and
Barb Marshall to highlight current and innovative research amongst the partnership. This
included presentations by Kim Sawchuk on time, temporality and media; Wendy Martin on
visual representations of the digital in everyday life; Loredana Ivan on older people when they are
communicating in Facebook communities; Andrea Rosales on learning processes when older
people start to use smartwatches; and Barb Marshall on wearables (such as FitBits), self-
tracking, and ageing bodies. The symposium was well attended and we had illuminating and
thoughtful discussions between the speakers and the audience and had the opportunity to widen
our networks by meeting many new international colleagues in ageing and the digital.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: ACT graduate student and postdoctoral fellow symposium

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Emerging research on later life
ACT Graduate Student / Postdoctoral Fellow Symposium
October 5th , Concordia University, Montreal

The research project Ageing + Communication + Technologies (ACT), housed in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University, is seeking proposals for its first graduate student and postdoctoral fellow symposium. The one-day symposium, titled “Emerging research on later life,” will be held October 5, 2017 at Concordia University. This event brings together emerging researchers from multiple disciplines working on matters related to ageing, and invites them to present on their recent work to colleagues as well as to senior researchers and ACT members from Concordia University, the Université de Montréal and Women, Ageing and Media (WAM), a feminist research group based in the UK.

We invite interventions that fit within the mandate of ACT, specifically, research understood to fall within one or more of its three axes: (1) agency in ageing: collaborative creativity and the digital arts in later life; (2) critical mediations: everyday life and the cultures of ageing; or (3) telecommunication technologies: ageing in networked societies. Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from all disciplines are invited to participate, and artistic and other non-traditional contributions are welcome. Presentations by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows will take place throughout the day. In the afternoon, Dr. Josephine Dolan from WAM will deliver a public keynote lecture on titled ‘Old age’, gender and the silvering of contemporary Hollywood cinema: economics and ideologies.

There are no registration costs. Lunch will be served and a reception will be held after Josephine Dolan’s keynote address. Specific location is to be determined. Spots are limited. Interested candidates should send a title, an abstract (max. 300 words), and a bio (max. 150 words) to application (at) actproject (dot) ca by September 1, 2017. Questions can be sent to Constance Lafontaine at admin (at) actproject (dot) ca.

Sponsors: 

The event is sponsored by Concordia University’s Feminist Media Studio, engAGE and  Department of Communication Studies. This event is also supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.