University of Twente Student Theses
Measuring online skills of Dutch older adults: Performance tests on laptops and tablets
Blauw, L. (2016) Measuring online skills of Dutch older adults: Performance tests on laptops and tablets.
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| Abstract: | In light of the digital divide and older adults being at a disadvantage when it comes to Internet skills, we examined the differences in Internet skills of Dutch older adults (50+) on both laptops and tablets. With tablets innovative type of interface, it would be interesting to see difference in Internet skills. In order to test the level of five types of Internet skills: operational, formal, information, communication and strategic and to examine what skill related problems they encounter on both devices, performance tests were conducted. Results indicate that older adults show the same skillset on both devices apart from the operational Internet skill. Saving a file remains problematic on a tablet. On the formal skill, older subjects on both devices showed a significantly lower skill level than younger subjects. For the information skill, age was only of influence on the level of skills on the tablet. Recommendations for future research are using a larger sample size with all demographic variables (age, gender, education) equally distributed among the sample size and also to focus on the communication skill, because of limited research available. This study showed great interest from this age group, but some aspects of SNS remain an issue. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 05 communication studies |
| Programme: | Communication Studies MSc (60713) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/70576 |
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