{"81511":{"#nid":"81511","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Aging in Place with Technology: Study Shows Older Adults Will Sacrifice Some Privacy to Remain in Their Homes Longer","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EYounger adults might cringe at the thought of being monitored in their homes by technology. Yet a new study from the Georgia Institute of Technology indicates that older adults are willing to give up some privacy -- if it enables them to remain independent longer.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022That illustrates how important it is to older adults to stay in their homes rather than move into some type of assisted-living housing,\u0022 said Wendy Rogers, a professor of psychology at Georgia Tech. Rogers presented preliminary findings of the study at CHI2004, an international conference on computer-human interaction held April 24-29 in Vienna, Austria. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe study, which examined older adults\u0027 perception of a technology-rich home environment, was part of the multidisciplinary Aware Home project conducted at Georgia Tech\u0027s Broadband Institute Residential Laboratory. The laboratory, funded in part by the Georgia Research Alliance, is a unique three-story house where researchers focus on domestic technologies for the future. The study Rogers presented was funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFor this study, researchers invited 44 adults ages 65 to 75 to tour the residential laboratory and view new technologies designed by Georgia Tech College of Computing researchers specifically to help people age in place. These technologies, ranging from low to high levels of intrusiveness, included:\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0095 \u0022Cook\u0027s Collage,\u0022 which photographs people during meal preparation and displays the cook\u0027s six most recent actions on a flat-panel display mounted over the countertop. The idea is to prevent distracted chefs from forgetting what actions they\u0027ve already taken. To reduce \u0022Big Brother\u0022 appearances, cameras are mounted out of sight and only show the chef\u0027s hands. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0095 \u0022Digital Family Portrait\u0022 helps out-of-town family members keep an eye on aging relatives. A display monitor hangs in the caregiver\u0027s home and displays a static photo of the older relative. The photo is surrounded by a digital-image frame whose icons change daily to reflect information about the older adult\u0027s life, such as general activity level.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0095 \u0022FaceBot\u0022 is a communication device that interacts with other home technologies. Designed to create a personality for these technologies, FaceBot features two cameras for eyes, microphones as ears and a speaker as its mouth. Instead of giving voice commands to an empty room, such as \u0022turn up the temperature,\u0022 residents can talk directly to FaceBot.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EResearchers asked participants what they specifically liked and disliked about the technologies. To spark qualitative responses, all questions were subjective in nature, such as: What is your first impression about living in a home like this? How would you feel about living here? Do you think there may be situations in which an Aware Home could invade your privacy? \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe interviews with older adults were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim. Researchers then created a coding scheme and analyzed comments along different dimensions, such as attitude to technology and context of use. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Understanding how older adults evaluate technology provides insights into their judgments and decision-making processes, which will help us design tools they will actually use,\u0022 Rogers said. \u0022Technology in the home is useless if people don\u0027t want it.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"A new study shows that older adults are willing to give up some privacy if that allows them -- with the help of technology -- to remain independent longer.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27304","created_gmt":"2004-05-07 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:03:38","author":"Matthew Nagel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-05-07T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2004-05-07T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/gtresearchnews.gatech.edu\/newsrelease\/privacy.htm","title":"User feedback"}],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"130","name":"Alumni"},{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003E \u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=\u0022\u003EContact  \u003C\/a\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}