“Devagarinho a gente pega o jeito”: um estudo antropológico sobre envelhecimento e mídias digitais

Abstract

This dissertation has as prime objective to discuss the uses of digital technology by the elderly through the data obtained by participating observation in different field locations. We shall also see how such practice relates itself with the promotion of active aging health policies. Therefore, I had as an analysis the modules I and III of the Best Age computing course, offered by the Computing Laboratory Prae/CPD (LABINFO) from UFSM and the digital social network Facebook. In the course's environment it was made possible to comprehend which questions referring to gender, generation/age group, learning time and educative process interfere directly in the learning process of the digital language by people with more than 50 years and, in consequence thereof, it is recurrent for us to see the circulation of the students between the Best Age course's modules, I have realized that the reason why the students turn to a computer course is something that goes beyond family and friends communication. To a large extend, these elderly people who I have accompanied in this one year field work, longed to become more autonomous and independent regarding the use of digital technology at the same time that they aimed to assert themselves as grandmothers and grandfathers present in the social life of their grandchildren. However, the laboratory space seems to be constituting itself, in a Santa Maria context, as one more of the elderly sociability spaces (more than a formal education space itself), that is different from others spaces downtown, mainly for being attended mainly by elderly women. The participation on social medias such as Facebook gives visibility to this group while online citizens and also makes the construction of sociability in the interior of the cyberspace possible. The fact that the number of Facebook users with more than 50 years old has grown, reveals that besides being experiencing a context of popularization of the internet in Brazil (either through the computer, but mainly through the cell phones), this is directly related with the growth of Brazilian population aging, matters widely addressed in this research. Following this way, the concept of participation, considered one of the bases for the promotion of active aging, should be rethinked in the context of the digital age.