Navigeren in het digitale tijdperk: een onderzoek naar digitale praktijken en ervaringen met digitalisering onder 75-plussers die in Parijs en de binnenste voorsteden wonen

Based on an ethnographic study conducted in Paris between 2020 and 2022, this doctoral thesis examines how older adults who are little or not connected to the internet experience and negotiate the digitalisation of society. In Paris, as elsewhere, digital technologies are now deeply embedded in nearly all areas of social life. Access to goods and services - both public and private, from banking and healthcare to public administration - as well as social relationships increasingly rely on digital infrastructures. While this transformation creates new opportunities for some in terms of autonomy, time savings, connectivity, and participation, it simultaneously generates new forms of exclusion for others, particularly for those who lack adequate equipment, internet access, or sufficient digital skills. This is notably the case for many older adults, especially those over the age of 75, who are among the least connected populations and constitute the core group of participants in this doctoral research. Whereas existing research on "offline" older adults has largely focused on identifying who they are and why they remain little or not connected, this thesis shifts the focus to what digitalisation itself does to them. It examines the practical and symbolic implications of digitalisation for everyday activities, access to essential goods and services, and social and family relationships. Rather than concentrating on the causes of non-use, the thesis analyses how older adults in Paris live with digitalisation and how they negotiate the constraints it introduces into their daily lives. The ethnographic analysis is complemented by statistical analyses drawn from the annual Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) survey conducted by INSEE (the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies), in order to situate the population studied within broader dynamics of digital access and use. The analysis first shows that low connectivity among older adults cannot be explained by age alone, but results from the interplay of multiple socio-economic factors, including educational trajectories, economic resources, gender, and marital status. Second, the thesis demonstrates that although participants were often not equipped or didn't really use digital technologies, these technologies nonetheless shape their everyday lives. They are omnipresent through the devices and practices of relatives, in public spaces, advertising, and public discourse, as well as through the increasing integration of digital logics that reconfigure what one can or cannot access. Drawing on the anthropology of disability, and more specifically on the work of anthropologist Dokumacı and her concept of "shrinkage" (2023), the thesis then shows how the expansion of digital infrastructures contributes to a contraction of older Parisians' opportunities for action and participation in everyday life. Digitalisation makes access to a growing number of activities, goods, and services more complex, conditional, or constrained, thereby redefining their margins of autonomy. Within this context of digital omnipresence and low connectivity, the thesis analyses how older adults in Paris engage with digital technologies and attempt to appropriate them - whether through training, on their own, or with the help of relatives. These efforts often prove difficult due to the rapid turnover of devices, recurrent technical malfunctions, bodily limitations that are insufficiently accounted for in design, and, in some cases, the absence of people able to support the appropriation of digital tools. These difficulties are further compounded by tensions between digital technologies and their related practices and participants' values and ways of life. The thesis also shows how older Parisians "get by" in managing their daily lives by relying on older ways of doing things, more traditional media, and the help of others. While these arrangements make it possible to maintain certain forms of autonomy and access in everyday life, they also raise issues related to the availability of others, dependence, and privacy. Finally, the thesis highlights how digitalisation also transforms older Parisians' family relationships. Digital tools are increasingly integrated into family interactions, particularly with younger generations, and family ties often serve as a motivation for digital engagement. At the same time, these shared uses are far from easy, as older adults do not necessarily have the same equipment or digital skills as their relatives. In this context, older Parisians and their family members must actively "work" to develop shared practices, which involves selecting devices suitable for everyone, providing support for use, coordinating compatible temporalities, and taking into account each person's preferences, limitations, and representations of digital technologies.