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The project of the professors of the Department of Sociology of the University of Murcia (UMU) Salvador Manzanera Román and Francisco E. Haz Gómez, funded by the COTEC Foundation for Innovation, has been one of the 14 chosen among the 734 proposals submitted by researchers and institutions throughout Spain.

Both experts will carry out an investigation in order to bridge the digital divide in the use of electronic administration and public services by the elderly.

The causes that prevent them from being users of all the resources and services that the different administrative entities make available to citizens will be studied.

These researchers join the line of research on digital society and technology within the UMU Department of Sociology.

Likewise, it will be possible to determine to what extent the adaptation of the electronic Administration to this age group can be improved.

In this way, it will be possible to avoid that, when passing from the presence of the Public Administration to the virtuality of electronics, the elderly become victims of exclusion risks as they are not digital natives.

The digital divide as a new form of exclusion

Public administrations at their different levels (European, national, regional and local) have promoted in recent years the generalization of electronic administration with the purpose of increasing the level of efficiency or improving the provision of services to citizens.

According to both researchers, "it is known that current technological change is faster, more intense and widespread, reaching all kinds of human activities such as productive or industrial but also related to citizen participation. This fact poses a challenge to democracy, to economic system, the social model and, above all, the exercise of rights by citizens. "

The latest studies indicate that older people are the ones they consider least to consider that they have sufficient skills for the use of digital technologies.

Therefore, "public institutions must face a new form of social exclusion such as the digital divide and, therefore, do not leave behind the group of older people with the advancement of digital society," said those responsible for the research.

Source: Universidad de Murcia