Empowering Older Adults Through Digital Technology: A Conceptual Framework for Enhancing Online Social Resilience and Well-Being
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Abstract
Population ageing and rapid digital transformation highlight the need for frameworks that move beyond digital access and basic literacy to address older adults’ capacity to navigate, adapt to, and benefit from online environments. This conceptual paper develops an integrated framework for Online Social Resilience (OSR), defined as older adults’ capacity to maintain meaningful social relationships through digital technologies, adapt to continuing technological change, and manage online risks such as misinformation, fraud, and privacy threats. The framework was developed through a structured narrative review, the thematic integration of six complementary perspectives—a WHO-informed age-friendly digital ecosystem, Uses and Gratifications Theory, Bourdieu’s Cultural Capital, Putnam’s Social Capital, the Technology Acceptance Model, and Human–Computer Interaction principles—and structured consultations with practitioners working with older adults in Thailand. Contextual and relational conditions are positioned as antecedents, while accessible design, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use function as mechanisms supporting sustained digital engagement. Sustained engagement, in turn, contributes to the relational, adaptive, and protective dimensions of OSR and to longer-term outcomes such as social participation, autonomy, digitally enabled social capital, and psychological well-being. The framework is operationalised through six intervention pillars, illustrated through Thai initiatives, and supported by three testable propositions and a proposed mixed-methods research agenda. By distinguishing OSR from digital inclusion, digital literacy, digital resilience, digital capability, social connectedness, and technology acceptance, the paper provides a clearer conceptual basis for designing and evaluating initiatives that support older adults’ meaningful, sustained, and safe participation in digital society.
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