Oldr

The personal computer is in many ways a rather inaptly named device. From the earliest days computers have been about sociality and community. The staples of everyday computer use, email and internet, are intimately social. As the internet evolves its uses become ever more implicated in relationships between people. Indeed, one of the most widely used piece of web jargon at present – Web 2.0 – refers to designing the web for, and developing with, intensively social uses in mind. In recent years socially oriented websites have become hot properties attracting both significant user communities and venture capital. Facebook, MySpace and many others have become must visit destinations on the information superhighway. For many younger users these sites define what an internet experience is all about. At the same tine the populations of the developed world have begun to experience the rapid ageing of their populations. Can an online world increasingly focused on supporting rich social experience provide realistic avenues for dealing with some of the threats and opportunities that an ageing world presents? How can we use Web 2.0 to support the sort of experiences that older people want to have on- and off-line?