X Close

Anthropology of Smartphones and Smart Ageing Blog

Home

Anthropology of Smartphones and Smart Ageing

Menu

Looking to the Future

By Marilia Duque E S, on 3 March 2018

Author: Marilia Duque

By the year 2050, the Brazilian population over 60 years old is expected to grow from 24 million to 66 million[1]. Fortunately, my first impression of the District of Vila Mariana, in São Paulo city, where I have been conducting ethnography since January, is that there are already innumerable initiatives for the elderly, both public and private.

In addition to public health units, there is the AME-IDOSO for example, a centre dedicated exclusively to the care of people over 60, taking referrals from other health units in the city of São Paulo. It provides examinations, medical appointments and treatments, as well as activities such as dance classes. Just a few blocks away, you can find the Elderly Coexistence Centre (NCI), also subsidised by São Paulo City Hall. If you are 60+ and live in the Vila Mariana District you can join a large number of activities such as knitting and crocheting, fitness, circular dancing, senior dance, manual work, pilates, painting on canvas, chanting, memory games and rhythm dancing. I went there the week before the carnival. When I arrived, it was snack time. While one group were doing a dance class in the lounge integrated into a beautiful garden, another group were chatting and eating, all dressed up in traditional carnival ornaments. The worker told me that the menu takes into account the food restrictions and needs of the participants.

(CC BY) Marilia Duque

During this first month, I have already mapped five squares in the neighbourhood, all of them with gymnastics equipment, in another São Paulo City Hall initiative for people over 60 called “Longevity Playground: Happiness is Ageless”.

(CC BY) Marilia Duque

But if you keep walking you will also see many gyms offering activities for the elderly with special prices, not to mention Aqui Fitness, which has a program of physical activities developed by a geriatrician. And just a few minutes away, you can also exercise your mind and improve yourself; the Nossa Senhora da Saúde Parish offers an adult literacy course (20.4% of the population of Brazil over 60 is illiterate[2]), language classes and a Whatsapp course, especially for people over 60.

(CC BY) Marilia Duque

One of my ethnographic challenges is to investigate how the ageing population in the neighbourhood perceives these initiatives. Do they really work? Do they work for everyone? Could appearances be deceptive? This is an important point because Vila Mariana District is far from being a utopia. You can choose to see just the modern buildings that are rising everywhere among the two storey houses. But you will have some difficulty ignoring the Mario Cardin Community, a favela where more than 500 families live in precarious conditions, or the homeless people living on the streets.

(CC BY) Marilia Duque

But for the moment let us take this apparent wealth of amenities at face value. Actually, this raises a rather different question. Do Brazilian people have to get old before they experience something approaching the support and solidarity of an egalitarian state?

 

 

[1] http://www2.camara.leg.br/a-camara/estruturaadm/altosestudos/pdf/brasil-2050-os-desafios-de-uma-nacao-que-envelhece/view

[2] https://agenciadenoticias.ibge.gov.br/agencia-noticias/2013-agencia-de-noticias/releases/18992-pnad-continua-2016-51-da-populacao-com-25-anos-ou-mais-do-brasil-possuiam-apenas-o-ensino-fundamental-completo.html

‘Healthy Ireland’ by Pauline Garvey

By Laura Haapio-Kirk, on 16 February 2018

From the Healthy Ireland website: http://www.healthyireland.ie/

Author: Pauline Garvey

 

Just last month the Irish government launched the latest national initiative to promote health and wellbeing across the country. The Healthy Ireland campaign 2018 was launched on the 6th January and aims to encourage people to ‘get active, eat well and mind their mental wellbeing’ (www.healthyIreland.ie).  Many of the planned initiatives run through local libraries and are advertised by pictures of families cycling through wooded glades or groups of friends exercising outdoors.

On the day of the launch in Dublin’s sporting venue Croke Park, Taoiseach (Prime Minster) Leo Varadkar said:

The message of the Government’s Healthy Ireland 2018 campaign is simple; I’m encouraging everyone to get involved, by making the small changes needed to improve your health and your family’s health. That could mean including a walk in your daily routine, making healthier choice at meal times or taking a break from your phone to give your mental health a boost. These positive and sustainable changes can help us all build a healthy Ireland (MerrionStreet 06/01/18).

The webpage dedicated to HealthyIreland acknowledges that social factors such as levels of education and income, or housing and work conditions may adversely affect health, and are determined by social, environmental and economic policies beyond the direct responsibility or remit of the health sector. Therefore the campaign asserts the ‘health sector alone cannot address these problems – we must collectively change our approach.’

Excessive mobile-phone use has now been added to nutrition and exercise as a health risk. And while this is interesting, it is perhaps not surprising. Frequent associations between an unhealthy attachment or addictive behaviour and mobile-phone use have been profiled in the national media recently. For example in December 2017 new research from Deloitte, found that 90% of 18-75-year-olds in Ireland now own or have access to a smartphone – putting Ireland among the top users of smartphones in Europe. By comparison 88% of people own, or have access to a smartphone in Europe. Richard Howard, head of technology, media and telecommunications at Deloitte greeted this figure with some caution: “Mobile devices are a relatively new ‘addiction’ to our social fabric and they form an important part of our daily activities and interactions’ (Quann 2017).

There are lots of unknowns in smart-phone use, which is why we are currently investigating this topic, and why we try to understand the smartphone in actual life situations. For example while the Deloitte study found that half of Irish people thought they used their phone too much, 60% thought their partner used it too much! What does this tell us of the place of the phone in negotiating relationships? Are people neglecting their loved ones, forging new friendships or engaging with existing friends and family in novel ways?

Meanwhile the government’s response in the Healthy Ireland Campaign is clear:  “Take the stairs rather than the lift, Eat more fruit and veg, Take a 30-minute break from your phone”. And Varadkar describes his own practice of turning off the phone during meals – “it not only makes the meal more pleasant and your interaction with people more pleasant, it is actually good for your headspace.”  (O’Connor 07/01/18)

 

References:

HealthyIreland 2018, www.healthyireland.ie

MerrionStreet Irish Government News Service 06/01/18, available online at https://merrionstreet.ie/en/Issues/Taoiseach_Leo_Varadkar_launches_Healthy_Ireland_2018_campaign.html (http://www.healthyireland.ie/about/)

O’Connor, Wayne 07/01/18 ‘Healthy Ireland 2018 aims to get us all fitter and more mindful’ Irish Independent, available online at https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/health/healthy-ireland-2018-aims-to-get-us-all-fitter-and-more-mindful-36464484.html.

Quann, Jack 05/12/17 ‘Three million Irish people now own or have access to a smartphone’, available online at http://www.newstalk.com/Mobile-phone-habits-of-Irish-people-revealed