Title:	POLICY SCENARIOS FOR THE DIGITAL INCLUSION IN AN AGING SOCIETY: AN AGENT-BASED SIMULATION
Author(s):	Maurizio Leo, Paolo Neirotti, Enrico Ferro, Brunella Caroleo
ISBN:	978-972-8939-36-6
Editors:	Gunilla Bradley, Diane Whitehouse and Gurmit Singh
Year:	2011
Edition:	Single
Keywords:	Policy, aging, diffusion of innovation, agent-based model, simulation, scenario.
Type:	Full Paper
First Page:	109
Last Page:	116
Language:	English
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Full Contents:	click to dowload
Paper Abstract:	ICTs are central to modern life and their importance is going to increase in the next future. At the same time, policy makers will have to face significant challenges regarding the process of innovation adoption and use because of the aging trend present among European societies. Indeed, old age results to be one of the most relevant factors affecting the exclusion from the information society. This paper aims to implement through a simulation environment a set of alternative policies which policy makers could carry out to promote equal digital opportunities in an aging society. This objective has been achieved combining agent-based modeling technique able to build-up different policy scenarios and statistical tools used to investigate the relationship between age and Internet diffusion in Piedmont Region (Italy). The simulation results show that the subjective perceptions of Rogers’ innovation attributes related to policy scenarios exert a significant influence on the dynamics of the diffusion process among old age people. Furthermore, it emerges that old people could enhance their technological adoption propensity in the next future through the building-up of specific ICT infrastructures, the provision of training courses addressed to them as well as the establishment of Technological Centers located in meeting places for elderly people. In particular, the implementation through the simulation environment of training courses for elderly people is likely to be the most efficient policy that Piedmont policy makers could carry out to accelerate Internet diffusion process in the short term.
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