Mobile Mundane (Dis)Connections: Examining Older Migrant Adults’ Mobile Media Automation During the COVID-19 Pandemic Through a Digital Kinship Lens

Abstract

Automated mobile applications played a key role in informing individuals and communities on navigating safety during the pandemic. Applications such as QR codes were adopted and normalized as a way for people to access a range of COVID-19-related information—such as exposure sites and the need to test and isolate because of infection. However, for some of the population such as older adults (60-plus years old), automated apps were not familiar. Drawing on remote interviews with 15 culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) Australian older adults in 2020 and 2021, we examine mobile application use as part of automation in everyday life. Deploying a digital kinship lens, our findings reveal the ways positive and negative perceptions and experiences of automated apps were shaped by differing sociotechnical networks, literacy, and illiteracy. By illuminating digital (dis)connective practices of older adults, we offer a nuanced perspective on inclusion in an increasingly automated society.