CAREER: Advancing Online Social Support for Older Adults with Disabilities

职业：推进对残疾老年人的在线社会支持

• 批准号: 1551574
• 负责人: Anne Marie Piper
• 金额: $ 49.99万
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-02-01 至 2020-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1551574&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Advancing; Online; Social; Support

The field of human-computer interaction has yet to address the complexities of designing online social technologies for older adults with severe late-life disability, a challenging problem that will grow in importance and scale with future generations. Social computing has changed how people communicate to such a degree that exclusion from online experiences can mean exclusion from critical aspects of society, and older adults are particularly vulnerable to such exclusion. While many people age without significant disability, one in four Americans who are 65 and older has a severe disability. Contact with one's social support network becomes increasingly important as health declines, whereas late-life health conditions and associated disability make staying connected difficult. A promising solution to this emerging problem is the PI's concept of "hybrid social computing" in which familiar communication interfaces are integrated with online social platforms while harnessing support networks to enable and protect users online. In this project the PI will focus on two pervasive conditions among older adults: late-life vision impairments and late-life speech-language impairments. She will utilize field research methods to understand the needs and challenges around online interaction for the two populations of study. She will then refine and extend three innovative prototypes developed in preliminary work, and rigorously evaluate the effects of these new tools through usability and field studies. Without online tools for older adults with severe late-life disabilities, we are unable to study the effects of online interaction for those who may benefit most, and the benefits may be vast. Staying socially connected can affect late-life physical and mental health, and staying connected online is associated with lower rates of depression and loneliness among older adults. With evidence of how the developed systems support online interaction, the results will impact strategies to promote late-life social connectedness and well-being. The integrated education and outreach plan fosters experiential learning with local community impact, including a mentorship program that enriches an accompanying undergraduate curriculum while drawing community members with disabilities into university activities. The PI will release the developed software as open source.The goal of this research is to develop a conceptual and technical framework for enabling and studying online social support for older adults with severe late-life disabilities. Extending an active program of research, this work will contribute: a conceptual and technical framework for connecting familiar communication interfaces with dynamic online systems while enabling and protecting users; new knowledge of the needs and challenges around online interaction in the context of late-life disability, providing the foundation for the proposed framework through design guidelines and a taxonomy; three innovative hybrid social computing applications, which will further refine this framework and introduce new techniques for accessible online interaction; and empirical and theoretical understandings of online communication for two understudied populations, including evidence of how online interaction affects social well-being. The integrated education plan involves developing a community-based mentorship program, which will extend a new undergraduate curriculum on design, computing, and disability. The proposed framework is potentially transformative in that it enables new forms of online interaction, making it possible to examine phenomena of online behavior with entirely new demographics. The rapid evolution of social computing presents major research challenges for many disciplines; this research will contribute new knowledge, new tools, and a new framework to address interdisciplinary challenges across computer science, communication studies, and gerontology.

人机交互领域尚未解决为患有严重晚年残疾的老年人设计在线社交技术的复杂性，这是一个具有挑战性的问题，其重要性和规模将随着后代而增长。 社交计算已经改变了人们的沟通方式，以至于被排除在在线体验之外可能意味着被排除在社会的关键方面，而老年人特别容易受到这种排斥。 虽然许多人没有明显的残疾，但65岁及以上的美国人中有四分之一患有严重残疾。 随着健康状况的下降，与社会支持网络的联系变得越来越重要，而晚年健康状况和相关的残疾使保持联系变得困难。 一个很有前途的解决方案，这一新兴问题是PI的概念“混合社会计算”，其中熟悉的通信接口集成与在线社交平台，同时利用支持网络，使和保护用户在线。 在这个项目中，PI将重点关注老年人中两种普遍存在的情况：晚年视力障碍和晚年言语语言障碍。 她将利用实地研究的方法来了解围绕在线互动的两个研究人群的需求和挑战。 然后，她将完善和扩展在初步工作中开发的三个创新原型，并通过可用性和实地研究严格评估这些新工具的效果。 如果没有针对有严重晚年残疾的老年人的在线工具，我们就无法研究在线互动对那些可能受益最多的人的影响，而这些好处可能是巨大的。 保持社交联系会影响晚年的身心健康，而保持在线联系与老年人抑郁和孤独的发生率较低有关。 有了开发的系统如何支持在线互动的证据，结果将影响促进晚年社会联系和福祉的战略。 综合教育和推广计划促进体验式学习与当地社区的影响，包括一个导师计划，丰富了配套的本科课程，同时吸引社区成员与残疾人进入大学活动。 PI将发布开发的软件作为开源。本研究的目标是开发一个概念和技术框架，用于启用和研究老年人严重晚年残疾的在线社会支持。 这项工作扩展了一项积极的研究计划，将有助于：一个概念和技术框架，用于将熟悉的通信界面与动态在线系统连接起来，同时支持和保护用户;关于晚年残疾背景下在线互动的需求和挑战的新知识，通过设计指南和分类法为拟议框架提供基础;三个创新的混合社会计算应用程序，这将进一步完善这一框架，并引入新的技术，方便在线互动;和经验和理论的理解，在线沟通的两个研究不足的人群，包括在线互动如何影响社会福祉的证据。 综合教育计划包括开发一个以社区为基础的导师计划，这将扩大一个新的本科课程设计，计算和残疾。 拟议的框架是潜在的变革，因为它使新形式的在线互动，使人们有可能检查现象的在线行为与全新的人口统计。 社会计算的快速发展对许多学科提出了重大的研究挑战;这项研究将贡献新的知识，新的工具和新的框架，以解决跨计算机科学，通信研究和老年学的跨学科挑战。