Politics & Governance / Public Policy / Social Welfare & Safety Nets

We're Building Digital Prisons for the Elderly (And Blaming Them)

Co-creating Digital Public Services for an Ageing Society

Juliane Jarke

In this video, we dive into Juliane Jarke's groundbreaking book, *Co-creating Digital Public Services for an Ageing Society*, based on the EU-funded Mobile Age project. We expose the uncomfortable truth: our rush to digitize public services is systematically locking out the elderly. We explore how tech giants and governments use flawed models like the Technology Acceptance Model to blame seniors for their own exclusion, and how 'senior-friendly' apps often strip away autonomy. Through case studies in Germany and Spain, we reveal a radical alternative: true co-creation, where seniors become the designers. We uncover hidden conflicts, like the lake that was a 'danger zone' to seniors but a park on official maps, and the tragic moment when a custom-built map was killed by bureaucratic rules. Finally, we confront a chilling question: if this is happening now, what happens when the next tech shift comes for all of us?