Ageing in a network society: An Introduction

Abstract

This special issue aims to explore the role of ICTs in encouraging the development of networked older adults. Specifically, the following papers give a noteworthy contribution to the challenges posed by an increasingly ageing and networked society. This special issue is edited by colleagues whose disciplines are not naturally symbiotic – one from Information and Communication studies and the other from Ageing studies. As such, this special issue posed an interesting set of challenges for the editors as they explored their shared understandings of what it means to grow old or be old in a network society. The editors would therefore like to thank the authors for their receptiveness to ageing studies theory and for challenging their own assumptions about what it means to be old. This special issue acts, in some ways, as a stepping stone or a bridge between more information technological based notions of what it is to grow older and cultural gerontological constructions of older age.