The Aftermath of Technology-Mediated Scams: Strengthening Older Adults’ Efforts Toward Redress

ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction · 2026-03-28

Technology-mediated scams are a pervasive and enduring form of digital harm affecting older adults. While prior research has largely emphasized prevention, awareness, and risk perception, comparatively little attention has been paid to what follows after a scam occurs. Conceptualizing the scam as an unfolding event, we argue that each stage of the scam—before, during, and after—is shaped by distinct sociotechnical arrangements and relational dynamics that demand tailored forms of analysis and intervention. Through a multi-method study, we examine the during and after, paying specific attention to the post-scam, during which older adults navigate the affective, social, and material aftermath of scams. In doing so, we extend HCI's engagement with digital harm by articulating the post-scam as a critical site of coordination, redress, and justice-seeking, offering new directions for research and intervention.

Understanding entangled human-technology-world relations: use of intelligent voice assistants by older adults

Information Research an international electronic journal · 2025-03-11 · 5 citations

Introduction: Emerging technologies like intelligent voice assistants or social robots can shape human relations with the world. To illustrate how an emerging technology mediates relations and shapes social practices in the context of aging, we present findings on use of voice assistants by older adults. Method: We analysed interviews with 24 older adults by adopting a post-phenomenological perspective to examine how an emerging technology actively mediates relations between older individuals and their larger social world. Results: Our findings surface the different types of relations that voice assistants mediate between older adults and their larger social world, unpacking how these relations shape social practices around what it means to give company to pets, to live alone, or to give and receive care. Discussion: We discuss implications for understanding the mutually constitutive relations between older adults and the emerging technologies they use and opportunities in designing to support neglected relations, and accounting for nonhuman actors in technology and aging research. Conclusion: We provide a preliminary understanding on how an emerging technology shapes social practices in later life. This understanding is crucial for aging and technology research, as several emerging technologies (e.g., social robots) target older adults, yet little is known about the relationships and discursive practices that shape their use.

Time's Sublimest Target: Practices of Forgetting in HCI and CSCW

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · 2025-01-10 · 2 citations

In our contemporary moment, there exists a hegemonic design practice and a general social desire to retain information. With the help of sociotechnical platforms and other contemporary technologies, information has changed its temporal and spatial boundaries, creating unbounded, algorithmic, and emergent forms of retention. The consequences of such retention are numerous, ranging from an overabundance of autobiographical information that cannot be fully understood by the individual to the improper use and economization of such information by state and corporation alike. Within this context, this paper investigates a counter-hegemonic practice of forgetting, specifically from the perspective of human-computer interaction and computer-supported cooperative work research, with additional insight drawn from adjacent fields. In doing so, we present forgetting as a significant area of research with HCI and CSCW, a burgeoning and contradictory space that may offer solutions to issues we face within a moment of persistence by default. This paper also explores potential directions for future research and design on forgetting in HCI and CSCW through an investigation of an art piece by Chinese artist Song Dong.

“I Felt Listened to”: Evaluating an AI-Powered Reflection Tool for Care Partners

ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · 2025-04-23 · 6 citations

This article evaluates CareJournal, an AI-powered application on an Amazon Alexa Show designed to support care partners (i.e., older adult receivers and caregivers) in care reflection and communication. CareJournal aims to address challenges faced by care partners in articulating the needs of the care relationships. Through a 4-week pilot study (N = 14 care partner pairs) and a 4-week field study (N = 16 care partner pairs), we assessed the tool’s effectiveness in supporting reflection and generating AI summaries that capture the care partners’ intent. Our findings indicate that CareJournal is a beneficial tool for improving communication intention and focus. We draw upon the role of articulation work in care routines and discuss design implications for AI to support articulation through adaptive reflection tools based on diverse care dynamics and highlight ethical considerations in balancing AI assistance with human agency.

HCI and Older Adults: The Critical Turn and What Comes Next

Foundations and Trends® in Human–Computer Interaction · 2025-06-18 · 8 citations

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has long studied the design of technology for older adults. A critical turn problematizing how older adults were being framed gained momentum in the 2010s. The literature comprising this critical turn offered insights for what researchers should avoid in their work as well as high level future directions. Past work was critiqued for positioning older adults as incapable technology users, the same as one another, and chronically ill and in need of care. In this monograph, we summarize some of the research that followed and responded to the critiques that began this critical turn. We focus our review on three spaces: technology use, intersectionality, and care. We describe how researchers have fruitfully drawn upon other disciplines including feminist and critical studies, gerontology, social computing, and disability studies to further break down myths, generate knowledge, and open new research spaces. We include our view of the gaps that remain and what should come next.

Older Americans are using AI − study shows how and what they think of it

2025-08-14

Prevalence and Correlates of Poor Sleep Quality in a Sample of Minoritized Older Adults with Chronic Pain

Journal of Pain · 2025-04-01

Rethinking Productivity with GenAI: A Neurodivergent Students' Perspective

2025-10-22 · 2 citations

Overview of ASSETS 2024

ACM SIGACCESS Accessibility and Computing · 2025-01-01

The 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2024) was held October 27th to 30th, 2024 as a hybrid event in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The ASSETS conference is the premier computing research conference exploring the design, evaluation, and use of computing and information technologies with and for people with disabilities and older adults. This year, the ASSETS conference continued its tradition of presenting innovative research on mainstream and specialized assistive technologies, accessible computing, and assistive applications of computer, network, and information technologies. 341 attendees from 24 countries attended the conference, including 233 in-person, 50 workshop-only, and 58 virtual attendees.

The Right to Be Skeptical: Insights from Recruiting At-Risk Users on Nextdoor

2025-04-23

Peer Reviewed