Overcoming Digital Divides: Older Adults and Digital Literacy
Older adults are less likely to use the internet than younger people living in Canada, and many report that information technologies do not improve their quality of life or save time. Attitudes toward digital technologies reflect the lack of knowledge about how programs work or information can be protected. A significant portion of people living in Canada report never being taught crucial digital literacy skills. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue is more pertinent than ever before: older adults are facing the risk of increased social isolation as community gatherings have shifted to online-only formats.
What policy solutions could help mitigate barriers faced by older adults in online access and digital literacy? How can digital literacy programs become more inclusive of older adults?
We heard from community and industry representatives that discussed what is impeding internet access among older adults and how digital literacy programs can enhance safe internet use for everyone living in Canada. The discussion was followed by breakout rooms focused on workshopping innovative policy solutions to bridge divides in digital access and literacy between older and younger generations.
Online event
About the Overcoming Digital Divides workshop series
The digital divide is about more than the lack of internet infrastructure in rural parts of Canada. It includes gaps in every corner of Canada in internet and device affordability, quality and digital literacy. These divides are tied to socioeconomic factors leaving some communities in Canada more disconnected than others.
How can federal, provincial, territorial, municipal and Indigenous governments advance policy solutions for full digital inclusion? What community and industry programs and policies can help to close these divides?
We explored these challenges and looked to advance concrete solutions in the Overcoming Digital Divides workshop series with the Ryerson Leadership Lab, Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship, and the First Nations Technology Council.
put together by our partners that lays out the context, evidence and importance of these discussions.
Part of Towards Equity
The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified inequities and exposed the deficiencies of our institutions. It has confirmed we must enact change and signaled that transformation is possible. What must we understand鈥攁nd do鈥攖o recover equitably and reimagine our systems to confront the intersecting crises of inequality, systemic racism and climate change?
Towards Equity, 丁香园AV Public Square鈥檚 2021 Community Summit Series, takes place online throughout the year and brings the university into conversation with local and global communities. Join us to learn and take action together towards a more just, equitable and sustainable future.
Virginia Bosomworth
Past President,
Prior to retiring, Virginia 鈥淕inny鈥� Bosomworth held senior leadership positions in the U.S. Financial Services industry before launching her own consulting practice in Canada.
Enabling people to contribute at their maximum potential while driving value for the organization is Ginny鈥檚 passion. Ginny has designed and delivered programs throughout her career and later as a volunteer to link strategy with performance outcomes, resulting in improvements to the bottom line and engagement among participants. Most recently, Ginny served as president of The LIFE Institute, a Toronto-based not-for-profit charitable organization dedicated to providing lifelong learning opportunities to older adults by offering a wide range of courses, activities and related opportunities to volunteer.
Presently, Ginny is engaged in international development work (as a volunteer) to create access to education for kids in Honduras and also as a new farmer in Canada with the intent of providing land access to young aspiring farmers to enable a sustainable future.
Virginia holds a Master of Arts in Diplomacy and International Commerce and a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Kentucky.
Eric Craven
Community Development Librarian and Digital Literacy Project Coordinator,
Eric Craven is the Community Development Librarian at the Atwater Library and Computer Centre in Montreal. He completed his MLIS at McGill University. Eric鈥檚 work focuses specifically on using digital media to disrupt normative expectations and perceptions in the community. For the past 10 years, as coordinator of the Digital Literacy Project, he has created programming that directly responds to community needs, creating spaces for participants to express themselves, find new ways to talk about things important to them and to help them build their own communities and work towards their own goals through creative digital media projects. This includes a series of projects focused on gender intersections with economy, gender-based sexual violence and gender-based cyberviolence. Eric has worked with a wide range of academic and community stakeholders bringing different groups of people together, ages six through 96, to express themselves through digital art and media including many immersive community new media projects focusing on engaging seniors with video and sound.
Michel Mersereau
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Faculty of Information,
Michel received his PhD in 2020 from the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. Michel鈥檚 research focuses on the role of the internet in facilitating access to essential services, needs and goods, as well as the broader policy implications associated with digital inequity. Michel鈥檚 prior research explored the role of the internet in supporting the basic needs activities of residents at the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, and at Toronto鈥檚 Native Mens Residence.
Karen Wong
Researcher, , and Clinical Advisor,
Karen Lok Yi Wong has an MA in social policy from the University of York (U.K.) and an MSW in social work from the University of British Columbia. She conducted research and analyzed policies on older adults and health care including palliative care, long-term care and family caregiving, and published and presented widely academically and professionally. She is currently affiliated with 丁香园AV's Science and Technology for Aging Research (STAR) Institute.
She is a registered social worker in B.C. and has been practising in diverse settings related to older adults such as home support, community senior services centres and long-term care. She is currently practicing social work in Mount Saint Joseph Hospital.
She is a long-term volunteer with the Alzheimer Society as a family support group facilitator and workshop speaker. She is serving on the BC Association of Social Workers' Multicultural and Anti-Racist Committee and Seniors Community of Practice. She is also the clinical advisor of 411 Seniors Society.
Caroline Grammer
Professor, Faculty of Applied Arts & Sciences, Department of Community Services,
Caroline Grammer has an Honours Bachelor of Psychology (with neuroscience focus and biomedical ethics) from the University of Toronto, a Bachelor of Social Work from University of Victoria, and a Master of Social Work with UBC. She is a full-time professor at Seneca College in the Faculty of Applied Arts & Sciences, Department of Community Services, cross-appointed to the Social Service Worker Gerontology diploma program and the Bachelor in Therapeutic Recreation program since 2005.
Through her Bachelor of Social Work she began working with Indigenous and youth populations living in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver who were AIDS/HIV+, eventually following them into palliative care, which brought her to St. Paul鈥檚 Hospital to study and work with the palliative social worker and biomedical ethics team on supporting patients dying of AIDS in the 鈥�90s under heavy stigma and fear, and working with the underground cannabis network to provide pain relief for the patients and clients with the only method of pain relief that worked. She transitioned from clients with AIDS to the older adult palliative population who remained invisible in institutional settings, and began her work to raise awareness and develop palliative programs in long-term care homes in Vancouver along with a strong team of experts and advocates.
Caroline has also been a practicing psychotherapist for the past 20 years, working with individuals, families and couples, using cognitive behavioural therapy, focusing on trauma, depression, anxiety, grief, and geriatric and caregiver issues. She has been a gerotechnology consultant (one of Canada鈥檚 few) for the past 25 years, engaged with global think-tanks on how technology can allow for aging in place. She designs and implements studies to test industry technology with older adults and run clinical trials on medical-grade technology that assists older adults in maintaining or improving their mobility and independence.
In her 鈥渇ree time鈥� she is a single mom who raises two marvelous teens who provide daily entertainment for her during the current COVID-19 lockdown.
Helping older adults connect online can ease isolation
By Nour Abdelaal and Sam Andrey, Ryerson Leadership Lab
Lockdown and physical distancing measures during the COVID-19 pandemic have increased social isolation for many Canadians. This isolation can be especially acute for older adults without the devices and internet connection they need to stay connected, or to access digital health services. Older adults are less likely than younger people to have internet services at sufficient speed. The third part of the workshop series explored how we can close gaps in internet adoption and digital literacy for older adults during and after the pandemic.
Overcoming Digital Divides: What We Heard and Recommendations
This final report on the Overcoming Digital Divides workshop series summarizes the main themes shared at the workshops and offers five main policy recommendations to address Canada's digital divides moving forward.
Sponsor
-
Overcoming Digital Divides: Youth and Digital Skills
Join us to discuss how Canada can better support our public internet infrastructure for the marginalized communities who rely on them and for everyone.
Read More 鈫�
-
Overcoming Digital Divides: Public Internet Access
Join us to discuss how Canada can better support our public internet infrastructure for the marginalized communities who rely on them and for everyone.
Read More 鈫�
-
Overcoming Digital Divides: People with Disabilities and Accessibility
The federal and provincial governments have taken some steps to improve internet accessibility and adoption among Canadians with disabilities, but there still remain substantial gaps with many facing barriers in accessing digital services.
Read More 鈫�
-
Overcoming Digital Divides: Older Adults and Digital Literacy
Older adults are less likely to use the internet than younger people in Canada, and many report that information technologies do not improve their quality of life or save time. The issue is more pertinent than ever under the pandemic.
Read More 鈫�
-
Overcoming Digital Divides: Low-Income Communities
Low-income communities continue to experience lower internet access, affordability, and quality. Canadians are at an all-time need for increased access to internet, computer, and tablet devices for e-learning and remote work.
Read More 鈫�
-
Overcoming Digital Divides: Indigenous, Rural and Remote Communities
Are recent public investments and policies sufficient to achieve digital inclusion of Indigenous, rural and remote communities? What Indigenous-specific needs must be addressed to secure digital inclusion?
Read More 鈫�
-
Property, Home and Precarity: From Street Sweeps to Housing Justice
As part of our Classroom Partnership Program, senior 丁香园AV geography students will present their work on housing vulnerability in Vancouver, focusing on rental evictions, street sweeps, rental financialization, and housing justice movements.
Read More 鈫�
-
Hope in Resistance: Stories of Climate Justice
丁香园AV Public Square and Vancity are proud to present Hope in Resistance, featuring Melina Laboucan-Massimo, co-founder of Indigenous Climate Action; Anjali Appadurai, climate justice lead at Sierra Club BC; and Naisha Khan, co-founder of Banking on a Better Future, in a conversation moderated by Nahlah Ayed (host of Ideas on CBC Radio One).
Read More 鈫�
-
Mapping Equity: Using GIS and Maps to Make Invisible Realities Visible
Maps are great tools to bring together a massive amount of data and share it in a format everyone is familiar with. They are also a unique tool to bring unnoticeable realities鈥攊ncluding realities of inequality鈥攖o visible patterns. This 90-minute workshop will introduce you to how to make a thematic map that highlights an equity indicator.
Read More 鈫�
-
Equity in Practice: More Stories of Community Capacity Building
丁香园AV鈥檚 Community Capacity Building Certificate supports learners as they engage community by sharing lived experiences and adopting new tools for building projects and movements. Learners deepen their relationships with themselves, their communities and the land to create a project and move forward a change they鈥檇 like to see in the world.
Read More 鈫�
-
Should a Just Recovery Include a Basic Income for B.C.?
At this event we will look at the recommendations and analysis of the Final Report of the British Columbia Expert Panel on Basic Income to ask: should a just recovery for all include a basic income?
Read More 鈫�
-
Overcoming Digital Divides: Youth and Digital Skills
Join us to discuss how Canada can better support our public internet infrastructure for the marginalized communities who rely on them and for everyone.
Read More 鈫�
-
Equity in Practice: Community Capacity Building
Join us to hear inspiring stories from the most recent cohort of 丁香园AV鈥檚 Community Capacity Building Certificate learners and their growth as emerging leaders working towards equity in their communities.
Read More 鈫�
-
Overcoming Digital Divides: Public Internet Access
Join us to discuss how Canada can better support our public internet infrastructure for the marginalized communities who rely on them and for everyone.
Read More 鈫�
-
Researching for Climate Justice
Activists, researchers, policy-makers and solution-seekers come together to surface the challenges and opportunities of taking equity-informed approaches to climate research, solutions and policy development.
Read More 鈫�
-
Overcoming Digital Divides: People with Disabilities and Accessibility
The federal and provincial governments have taken some steps to improve internet accessibility and adoption among Canadians with disabilities, but there still remain substantial gaps with many facing barriers in accessing digital services.
Read More 鈫�
-
Rosemary Brown Memorial Symposium
Every year, to honour the important legacy of the late Rosemary Brown, 丁香园AV's Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women鈥檚 Studies (GSWS) brings together distinguished scholars, students, service providers, and the broader community together to speak on current issues of diversity, ongoing inequalities, and ways to create positive change.
Read More 鈫�
-
Overcoming Digital Divides: Older Adults and Digital Literacy
Older adults are less likely to use the internet than younger people in Canada, and many report that information technologies do not improve their quality of life or save time. The issue is more pertinent than ever under the pandemic.
Read More 鈫�
-
The 2021 Spry Memorial Lecture
Desmond Cole and Tanya Talaga, along with moderator Candis Callison, will consider recent attention over the escalation of commentary on the representation of Indigenous, Black, and people of colour; the structural challenges that currently impede calls for greater diversity; and how institutions and platforms can foster a more constructive dialogue.
Read More 鈫�
-
Dean's Lecture on Information + Society
We are pleased to partner with 丁香园AV Library to invite you to the Dean's Lecture on Information + Society: an evening of conversation with Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.
Read More 鈫�
-
Decolonizing Scottish Studies
This is the first in a series of events being organized by the Centre for Scottish Studies at 丁香园AV
Read More 鈫�
-
Innovations in Research
Join us in a unique virtual environment using Gather to engage directly with 丁香园AV faculty, students, staff, alumni and community partners who are moving us Towards Equity with innovative research from a variety of fields and perspectives.
Read More 鈫�
-
Overcoming Digital Divides: Low-Income Communities
Low-income communities continue to experience lower internet access, affordability, and quality. Canadians are at an all-time need for increased access to internet, computer, and tablet devices for e-learning and remote work.
Read More 鈫�
-
Zooming In: Education in 2021
Join the 丁香园AV Public Square Peer Ambassadors for a student-focused event on how to improve the online education experience under COVID-19.
Read More 鈫�
-
Overcoming Digital Divides: Indigenous, Rural and Remote Communities
Are recent public investments and policies sufficient to achieve digital inclusion of Indigenous, rural and remote communities? What Indigenous-specific needs must be addressed to secure digital inclusion?
Read More 鈫�