Cyber School for Grandparents: an Intergenerational Educational Program to Bridge the Digital Divide

Social participation and social relationships are relevant aspects of older adult's psychosocial well-being. In this regard, specific interest is devoted to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) which enable to connect people and to support their social participation. Despite the number of older Internet users constantly increased in the last decades, older adults still display reduced Internet access compared to younger generations. Italian elderly people are severely penalized by this "gray digital divide". The pandemia due to COVID-19 spread has exasperated the situation, leading to the paradox of having people putatively most beneficent of use as those most excluded, due to scanty of competencies and of suitable and agreeable learning occasions. The Cyber School for Grandparents is an innovative intergenerational educational program aimed to bridge the digital divide by training secondary school students (aged 15-17 years) to become cyber tutors for their grandparents. The intervention will take place during the 2021/2022 school year, as part of the curricular activities of 3 classes at the local Human Science High School. The intervention was designed to be personalized and inclusive, in order to meet the need of each student-senior dyad, regardless of their starting digital skills and attitudes toward technology. The primary aim of the present mixed-method feasibility study is to qualitatively evaluate students' participation and learning throughout the course and to measure grandparents' pre-post changes in mobile device actual use, self-reported proficiency and attitudes. Secondly, eventual pre-post changes on aging stereotypes and psychosocial well-being of the participants will be explored.