Strategies for Fostering Senior Citizens’ Active Participation in Online Communities

The aging of the world population and growing increase in the number of information and communication technology users have posited great challenges in addressing interface design and finding strategies for fostering their online participation. Although the benefits and recommendations for developing online communities for active ageing have been widely recognized, there has been far too little attention to empirical studies that analyze a set of recommendations to undertake these online communities within institutional practices underlying the different pillars of active ageing established by the World Health Organization, i.e., Health, Safety, Participation in Society, and Lifelong Learning. The aim of this paper is to identify a set of strategies for fostering senior citizens’ participation based on a seven-session activity package involving 12 senior citizens using the online community “miOne.”. These recommendations included trustworthiness in web design, active listening, and incorporation of the social networks in the physical space within the online community.