Mediated Internet Experience for Senior Citizens

Survey results from the Pew Internet American Life Project indicate that the demography of senior citizens that conduct activities on the Internet is rapidly growing and vulnerable to online privacy violations. Their enhanced vulnerability stems from their trusting nature, a characteristic of their times and culture. Since the Internet related threats such as phishing, spamming, etc., are still research issues, a purely technical solution, although desirable, is currently not viable. In this paper, we view the problem through the trust prism and argue for a socio-technical solution to help senior citizens conduct their online activities safely. We propose the conceptual outlines of a trust based framework for a Mediated Internet Experience (MINE) for senior citizens residing in a community center. The framework uses a trust model based on Bayesian Network modeling to help assign trust levels to Internet sites and recommend them for further transactions. Towards a realistic expansion and implementation of the proposed framework and trust model, we propose to conduct surveys and statistical analysis.