Reacherch On Gender Digital Divide Of The Elderly

China is in the process of population aging deepening and the digital information developing.Smart devices such as smartphones become popular.However,there is a significant difference between the elderly and society average in access and usage of smartphone.Thus it is difficult for the elderly to share the social dividends of technology.Meanwhile women’s possession of digital information is not equal to that of men,which means they are “vulnerable group” in digital era.Obviously the old women at the intersection of age and gender variables are dually marginalized.This study takes Luxian,Sichuan as research case.Under the framework of the digital divide,it takes questionnaire and interviews as research methods to investigate the differences in the use of smartphones among the elderly in accordance with the three aspects: access gap,use gap and knowledge gap.And it uses social gender theory and empwoerment theory to explain the reason and to analysis how to empower the “vulnerable group”.The study found that in terms of the access of smartphones elderly men using smartphones earlier are much more like the thought-out “early majority” of the theory from Diffusion of Innovations,.they learnt to use via their social relationships,and can choose their devices by themselves.While elderly women are the skeptical “ late majority”,who get smartphones passively under external pressure.People who didn’t access to smartphone are thought as the conventional “laggards”.The older people use the smartphones infrequently.Women tend to use social and entertainment applications,but for more complex ones,they could not perform as well as men.The preferences are affected by socioeconomic status(SES),the technical logic from male smartphone engineers with sex prejudice and cultural expectations to women in social division of labor.In terms of knowledge about smartphones,the elderly generally hold an optimistic attitude.They are less likely to identity fake information and risks,the awareness of personal information and property security of the elderly women is rather weak.However it does not mean that smartphones deepen the gender digital divide.On the contrary,it can empower older women,improve their social resource ownership,promote the social participation of older women,which can enhance their sense of self-efficacy.