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A Life Course Analysis on Mobile Use among Third Agers in China

This study explores what influence mobile use among third agers in China from the perspective of individual experience in life course theory. Mobile phones are promising tools to improve life quality of elderly [1]. With the development of mobile internet and devices, mobile use ability begun to influence third agers’ life quality. Life course theory on the other hand, refers an individual life transition as part of cluster of concurrent transitions and a sequence of transitions that affect each other [2] and argue that the essence of life course is the interaction of ‘individual time’, ‘family time’, and ‘history time’. This study, focusing on individual time aspect, explores the relationship between mobile use ability and their distinct individual experience in life course. The study focuses on people aged between 50 and 70, who are referred to as being ‘third age’ [3]. Largely research on mobile phone use focuses on young generations. Relatively few studies have been conducted on people around retirement age, a group termed ‘third age’ [3, 4]. Third age is now seen as an important stage of life, and is described by life course theory. Third agers were not born in digital time, but they have accumulated digital capacities and acquired familiarity with technology, which has been termed as ‘digital literacy’ by Paul Gilster [5], now they need to face mobile world when they are old. Based on 6 in-depth interviews of mobile phone use in second tier cities in China in 2018, this study found individual experiences contribute to levels of mobile use ability amongst Chinese third agers. Mobile use ability in turn influences retired life quality.