Understanding ICTs in Older Life: A Scope Review of ‘The Gerontologist’ and ‘Research on Aging’

Aging is an inevitable process for all human beings. Aging not only affects the personal life of individuals, but also has an impact on society as a whole: a country with many elderly people is a more fragile, less innovative country, with higher costs in terms of health and pension expenditure. In this context, information and communication technologies (ICT) can offer an important support in addressing some of the challenges related to ageing, improving communication between generations, access to information and the possibility of remaining active and involved in society, mitigating the negative effects of aging and transforming the elderly into a resource for the community. The complexity and importance of the topic has led different disciplines to study (from different points of view) the relationship between aging and the use of ICT.The present study aims to investigate the theme of aging and how it is studied in relation to digital technologies from an interdisciplinary perspective. Due to the heterogeneity of perspectives and analyses in this field of study, a careful examination of interdisciplinary scientific journals focused on aging processes was required. Therefore, the analysis of scientific production was focused on two international scientific journals: The Gerontologist and Research on Aging