Study level

  • PhD

Faculty/School

Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice

Topic status

We're looking for students to study this topic.

Research centre

Design Lab

Supervisors

Professor Thea Blackler
Position
Professor
Division / Faculty
Faculty of CI, Education & Social Justice
Associate Professor Bernd Ploderer
Position
Associate Professor
Division / Faculty
Faculty of Science
Dr Jane Turner
Position
Senior Lecturer (Games)
Division / Faculty
Faculty of CI, Education & Social Justice
Dr Nicole Vickery
Position
Lecturer in Visual Communication
Division / Faculty
Faculty of CI, Education & Social Justice

External supervisors

  • Linda Knight RMIT
  • Shital Desai York University, Toronto

Overview

This project aims to address the urgent problem of isolation, dislocation of families by distance and lack of 'intergenerational closeness' by developing ways to build stronger bonds between geographically distributed families using tangible, embodied and embedded interfaces (TEIs). TEIs combine physical artefacts and digital information, allowing interactions across a variety of spaces, and in combination with other activities and experiences.

Research activities

Students will investigate how either tangible or screen-equipped devices can enable intergenerational closeness through co-designing, prototyping, building and evaluating TEI systems with geographically distanced participants.

Outcomes

This project’s importance lies in its potential to address issues around isolation and loneliness in older people and children, the increase in geographically separated families worldwide, and the need of people of all generations to connect more authentically across distance (highlighted by the pandemic, when we all got 'zoomed out').

Firstly, there are benefits for older people. By 2050, 16% of people in the world will be over age 65, up from 9% in 2019. In 2018, for the first time in history, persons aged 65 or above outnumbered children under five years of age globally. The number of people aged 80 and over worldwide is expected to triple by 2050, from 143 million in 2019 to over 420 million, and isolation is a growing issue for older people. Everyday objects connected through the Internet have also been used to help address loneliness in older adults. However, such investigations involving distanced intergenerational closeness with older people/children are extremely limited.

Secondly, there are benefits for children. Strong, nurturing intergenerational communities are essential for children’s health, education, and creativity, and the pandemic has highlighted how difficult separated families and isolation can be, particularly for children as well as older people]. We know that developing friendships between society’s youngest and oldest citizens can improve wellbeing for both groups, and assist children in developing social skills for the future.

Contribute to a framework for developing TEIs for intergenerational communication

Skills and experience

Students will need a background in industrial or interaction design and/or IT/human computer interaction and an honours degree or equivalent.

Scholarships

You may be eligible to apply for a research scholarship.

Explore our research scholarships

Keywords

Contact

Contact via email a.blackler@qut.edu.au