Information Issues for Older Americans

William Aspray

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781538150207
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Library & Information Science
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

There are more than 50 million people age 65 or older in the United States, and over the decade 2010-2019 this was the fastest growing age sector in the United States – growing by 34% during that period. (US Census Bureau) As people age, they face a number of new challenges and opportunities, ranging from the shift from salary to Social Security and retirement funds, increasing issues with health, and opportunities for extended relaxation and second careers. While seniors bring a lifetime of experience and honed skills, they face a number of new situations that involved learning new information and new ways of doing things.
Information Issues for Older Americans brings together faculty from the leading Information Schools to examine information needs, behavior, and policy related to older Americans.
These scholars use a variety of lenses to understand the information issues that older Americans face in their everyday lives. These lenses include information literacy from both the consumer and provider sides; information behavior to understand search strategies, evaluation of information quality and relevance, sources used, questions raised, and how these change over time; the information ecologies in which an individual lives in his or her private and professional worlds; privacy issues that arise in everyday life; information and communication technologies (ICTs), including the skills of users with these technologies, the expected and unexpected uses of these technologies, and the technology's positive and negative impacts; how ICTs can be used to augment human intelligence and physical skills (human-computer interaction and design); how ICTs, together with traditional information institutions such as libraries and museums and social clubs, have been used to build stronger communities (community informatics).
This book is a contribution to the academic literatures on information studies and aging, but it is also intended to be generally readable and be accessible to the educated public and professionals who serve older Americans such as librarians, health care workers, and workers at community centers. While there is a growing literature on health informatics for the elderly, and occasional journal articles on various other topics about information and the elderly, this is the first comprehensive book on the various information aspects of the everyday activities and concerns of older Americans.

Table of contents

• Preface William Aspray
• 1 Everyday Information Behavior of Older Americans William Aspray
• 2 Information, Knowledge, and Successful Aging William Jones
• 3 One Senior Citizen’s Information Ecosystem and Infrastructure James W. Cortada
• 4 AARP and Its Competitors as Information Providers William Aspray
• 5 Age and Technology in Action Claudia Grisales Bohorquez, Marilyn Kay, Noah Lenstra, and Kate Williams
• 6 Health Insurance Literacy and Older Adults Emily Vardell
• 7 Active Aging in the Era of Smart Devices Pallabi Bhowmick, Clara Caldeira, Kay Connelly, Ben Jelen, Novia Nurain, and Katie A. Siek
• 8 Telephone-Based Communities for Information and Social Connectedness Robin N. Brewer and Mary Janevic
• 9 Not Your Grandparents’ Family Tree: Practices of Privacy in Genetic Genealogical Networks Judith Pintar
• 10 The “One Hundred Percent Corner”: Situational Awareness and Successful Aging in Community David Hopping
• 11 Mapping the Research on Digital Information Issues for Older Adults Unmil Karadkar
• About the Editor and Contributors