“Sharing life”. About the adoption of social networks on the Internet among people with disabilities and older persons

Abstract

Social networking on the Internet, in conjunction with new devices like the smartphone or tablet –evolutions of the PC which have become an extension of the individual– recreate the ways of being in contact. This article offers, from a sociological approach to technology, an approximation to practices and, especially, to the processes of discursive representation of these networks between people with disabilities and elderly, to understand the different attitudes to them, barriers perceived, the distances and its disclosed potential. It is found that, in addition to the functional diversity profiles, age and educational level largely condition the process of adoption of these information and communications technologies (ICTs), the effect of its barriers and the use of their advantages.