The social dimension of domesticating technology: Interactions between older adults, caregivers, and robots in the home

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120678Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Care-robot gerontechnology in the homes of older adults is a novel test site.

  • Technology is used – domesticated – in different practical, symbolic and cognitive ways.

  • Domestication of technology theory should be expanded to include a social dimension.

  • Robot technology can have multiple effects on care networks and relationships.

Abstract

In this article we look at the home as an arena for care by exploring how care robots and technological care-systems can become part of older adults’ lives. We investigate the domestication of robot technology in the context of what in Scandinavia is called “welfare technology” (relating to the terms “gerontechnology” and “Active Assisted Living,”) that especially aims to mitigate older adults´ challenges with living in their own homes. Through our case study, we investigate a system called eWare, where a flowerpot robot called “Tessa” works in symbiosis with a sensor technology “SensaraCare.” Together, they create a socio-technical ecosystem involving older adult end-users living at home, formal caregivers (e.g. healthcare workers), and informal caregivers (normally family members). We analyze our ethnographic fieldwork through the theoretical concept of “domestication of technology,” focusing on an established three-dimensional model that includes practical, symbolic, and cognitive levels of analysis. We found that social bonds and different ways of using the same technology ecosystem were crucial, and so we supplement this model by suggesting a fourth dimension, which we term the social dimension of the domestication of technology.

Keywords

Welfare technology
Active assistive living
Gerontechnology
Care robots
Older adults
social robots

Cited by (0)

Dr. Roger Andre Søraa is a researcher at the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture (KULT) and Department for Neuromedicine and Movement Science at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology. His-main research interests are the digitalization and robotization of society and the ethical, gendered, and epistemological consequences of this. Dr. Søraa is the deputy leader of NTNU's Immersive Technology and Social Robotics laboratory, which does research on welfare technology and gerontechnology, and leads a research group on the digitalization and robotization of society at NTNU KULT.

Pernille Nyvoll is a researcher at the Department for Neuromedicine and Movement Science at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She currently works on several projects on social robotics and welfare technology, such as eWare (AAL-2016–071) and LIFEBOTS-Exchange (H2020-EU1.3.3. grant 842,047) and is lab coordinator at the NTNU's Immersive Technology and Social Robotics laboratory. In the LIFEBOTS Exchange project she is a WP-leader, coordinates research exchanges and workshops, and writes research articles. Nyvoll holds a B.A. and M.A. degree in European Studies.

Dr. Gunhild Tøndel is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the Department of Sociology and Political Science, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She has a broad research interest concentrated around questions of welfare, old age, technology and policy, sociological theory and qualitative methods, and, especially, the sociology of quantification and governance by numbers tradition.

Dr. Eduard Fosch-Villaronga is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Researcher at the eLaw Center for Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University (NL). He has been appointed as an expert by the European Commission to the Consumer Safety Network's Sub-Group on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Connected Products and other New Challenges in Product Safety. Dr. Fosch-Villaronga also co-leads the Working Group on Ethical, Legal, and Societal Aspects for Wearable Robots at the H2020 COST Action CA16116. He has published Robots, Healthcare, and the Law: Regulating Automation in Personal Care with Routledge.

Prof. Artur Serrano is a professor of Welfare Technology, Department of Neuromedicine and Movement Science, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He is the leader of the Immersive Technology and Robotics Lab at NTNU and Adjunct Professor at the Norwegian center for eHealth Research, University Hospital of North Norway. Prof. Serrano holds a MSc in Information Systems and a PhD in Software Engineering. His-expertise is in systems architecture, user-centered design and user experience. He is Project Coordinator and PI for SENSE-GARDEN (AAL/Call2016/054-b/2017), and Project Coordinator for LIFEBOTS-Exchange (H2020-EU1.3.3. grant 842,047).