Dergi makalesi Açık Erişim

Social Class, Digital Capital and Practices for Staying Connected of Older People During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2022    Arun, Ozgur; Binark, Mutlu; Taylan, Duygu Ozsoy; Kandemir, Beren; Sahinkaya, Gul

Older adults are among the ones most exposed to social isolation because they've stayed at home for much longer during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research aims through multiple correspondence analysis being made along the axis of questions about what media use practice older adults have for coping with feelings of isolation, how they stay in touch with their social environment, and what kind of relationship their practices for coping with the feeling of isolation and for staying connected to their social environment have to their social status. The research focuses on the decisive roles of digital capital and social status. Television is seen to help older adults the most in overcoming the feeling of isolation, followed by telephone and smartphone calls, respectively. Older adults with higher social status tend to have higher digital capital and accordingly also use more diverse means of communicating to access quality information. The multiple correspondence analysis has revealed digital inequality to be an extension of social, economic, and cultural inequalities.