Digital care at home : exploring the role of smart consumer devices
Abstract
In-home ‘smart’ consumer devices such as voice assistants, doorbells, thermostats, and lightbulbs have been advocated by organisations in the UK such as the RNIB, Alzheimer Scotland, and the NHS. Yet the use of these devices, which are not purposely designed as care devices and therefore are not subject to evaluation and regulation, has been neglected in the academic literature. This paper reports on a study which examined 135 Amazon reviews of 5 ‘top-selling’ smart devices, concluding that such devices are being used to supplement informal caring, albeit in different ways. The implications of this phenomena are necessary to consider, specifically the consequences for ‘caring webs’ and expectations about the future role of digital devices within the landscape of informal caring.
Citation
Reid , L A & Sisel , G 2023 , ' Digital care at home : exploring the role of smart consumer devices ' , Health & Place , vol. 80 , 102961 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2022.102961
Publication
Health & Place
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1353-8292Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Description
Funding: Royal Society of Edinburgh (62651), Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (RIG008250), University of St Andrews (StARIS).Collections
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.