Technophobia as emerging risk factor in aging: Investigation on computer anxiety dimension
Digital innovation changed the daily living impacting Quality of Life of individuals. Our study was focused on adult and elder behavioural approach to the technology. Out study aimed to inves tigate the impact of technology use in not digital native in order to investigate the behavioural degree of adaptation. An observational study was conducted on adult and old subjects (age range 50–67 years) measuring computer anxiety and technology use ability variables identifying the indexes for technophobia risk in digital living. Not digital native subjects and more older ones appeared being influenced by technophobia features because of feeling themselves as inadequate in the management of technology. One way ANOVA and then Bonferroni’s post-hoc analysis showed that non-autonomous (p<0.01), low-frequency (p<0.01), and feeling need-for-help users (p<0.01) had higher levels of computer anxi ety. No significant effect was in gender distribution. Finally, social networking seems related better use of technology andlower anxiety for digital solutions. Our findings highlight techno phobia as a possible new risk factor for not digital native because it can affect their daily life through lower adherence to digital solutions; rather than aging successfully, they could develop frag ile ageing. More, they seemed inadequate to use the digital solu tions for better living in aging.
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