‘Send me a WhatsApp When you arrive home’. Mediated practices of caring about

Recently, a lot of attention has been directed towards designing and implementing innovative technologies to fight against older people’s social isolation and loneliness. Our chapter explores how older people and their families use social media in their everyday life to connect with others, share everyday lived experiences and undertake quotidian arrangements. In doing so, the chapter investigates underexplored ways of mediated ‘care about’. Drawing on an ethnographic study, we focus on the form and characteristics of the care about infrastructures assembled in affective relational practices among family members. Eventually, from the care about practices settled in everyday life mediated relationships, it makes three suggestions for the techno-care area: to study mediated social connectedness as a matter of care, considering emotions and affects and incorporate relational theoretical frameworks in technology innovation design.

Beneito-Montagut, Roser & Begueria, Arantza (2021). ‘Send me a WhatsApp When you arrive home’. Mediated practices of caring about. In Peine, A., Marshall, B., Martin, W., & Neven, L. (Eds.). (2021). Socio-gerontechnology: Interdisciplinary Critical Studies of Ageing and Technology (1st ed.). Routledge.