Ageing in rural Italy through digital media. Health and everyday life

Drawing on recent research insights (Airola, Rasi 2020), this study explores how ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) use is incorporated into older adults’ everyday life, thus contributing to shape ageing processes in remote areas. The research was set in a small mountain village located in central Italy, called Castel del Monte, which counts less than 500 resident citizens, for the most part older people. Carried on through one-month participant observation in January 2020 and 20 in-depth interviews with people over 65, the research broadly explores: RQ1: what does ageing in a remote mountain context mean? RQ2: how are digital technologies interwoven with ageing processes? RQ3: how are digital technologies incorporated into older adults’ daily health-care practices? Overall, ICTs were interpreted as an amplifier of the older adults’ «space of possibilities for social action» (Tulle 2008). Our research results invite to overcome individualistic accounts of active ageing as the ICTs-favoured empowerment of older people, and to rather consider digital technologies as tools fitting into concrete landscapes of care (Milligan, Wiles 2010) which – especially in rural contexts – are often based on informal networks of care.