Active Digital Aging Process Based on Older Adults’ Experience in Creating Digital Content

This study explored the digital aging experiences of older adults who create digital content from the perspective that older adults are active participants in the current digital society. Eight older adults who had been creating digital content for at least six months shared their experiences. The interview data were analyzed based on the Grounded Theory. Findings indicated that the participants showed common psychological characteristics, life experience characteristics, and social and environmental factors in later life that became the foundation for digital content creation. In the introductory stage of digital content creation, older adults passively utilized available resources. As they progressed to the more sophisticated stage of creating digital content, they actively interacted with existing resources and developed digital skills. They minimized the negative influences of obstacles in the digital aging process by utilizing the resources they already had. Digital content creation made them experience active aging and it allowed them to continue digital content creation. This experience led to the virtuous cycle structure of digital content production. Based on these results, intervention strategies for digital aging in middle and old age and educational methods to improve digital competence for older adults were discussed.