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Grey Digital Divide - Sponsored by the Africa Chapter

The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) brings with it rapid technological advancement and artificial intelligence (AI), raising concerns for older generations who are unable to keep up with the changes. These older generations find themselves falling behind in daily life involving the use of technology, including smartphones, the internet, and digital information access. The difficulties older individuals face in accessing and utilising digital technologies are embodied by the grey digital divide. They are subjected to social isolation and inequality as a result of this circumstance, which violates their human rights. It also draws attention to how unevenly people acquire digital literacy abilities and how they are unable to keep up with the rapidly advancing technologies. The webinar's goal is to increase awareness of the gap that affects older individuals and offer potential solutions.

Presenter

Dr Alice Odu is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Information Science, School of Information Technology, University of Pretoria. She is doing research on bridging the grey digital divide: an intergenerational approach for the African Centre of Excellence for Information Ethics (ACEIE). Alice completed her doctoral studies at the University of South Africa (UNISA) in 2021, and her research focused on the information seeking behavior of students who use their mobile devices and social media to seek for academic information. Before joining the department, Dr Alice was an academic librarian at the Federal University Lafia in Nasarawa State in Nigeria where she headed the readers/customer service department of the University Library. Her research interest include: user information studies, information behaviour using mobile social media, social media in libraries, and digital divide among users in libraries and other related information and communication technologies in libraries.

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