Past experiences, current practices and future design

Article history: Received 26 April 2013 Received in revised form 27 February 2014 Accepted 17 April 2014 Available online 16 May 2014 This article discusses how the elderly experience their ICT usage as the aging citizens of the Finnish information society. Through reflexive ethnographic analysis the human–(non-) human boundary-making and temporalities are analyzed from the “ICT biographies” of sixteen interviewees. The perspectives of aging as lived experience and as socio-cultural phenomenon; and the socio-materiality entangled with temporal layers; are combined to understand the intra-action between the aging ICT users and technology. The social relations are discussed as an essential part of this intra-action: the interviewees perceive themselves as slow and clumsy ICT users in relation to younger “generations”, for example. In the boundary making between humans and machines, the interviewees' previous experiences on communication technologies are significant. Continuing on the path set by previous studies on ICT and aging, this article further discusses the benefits of ethnographic study on existing ICT practices for computing design. What could be learnt from these practices in relation to, for example, technology usage in private and public places, negative and positive experiences, motivations and needs of aging citizens? How could design benefit from understanding aging as situated, lived experience; and on the other hand, from investigating research process through reflexive ethnography? © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.