Background: Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is being spread at an unprecedented rate across the globe. Yet, new research suggests that digital divide is not only continuing but also deepening at the same time. After access to basic ICT equipment, it is now the lack of skills and quality of hardware and software that leads to a continuing digital divide. Digital divide which is specifically related to elderly is known as grey digital divide. Objectives: The focus of this paper is to review and analyze recent relevant research on grey digital divide which is fast emerging as a major challenge in the era of ageing. A side objective is to raise implications for theory and practice discourses to minimize grey digital divide. Method: Literature on digital divide and grey digital divide is reviewed to gather relevant knowledge on the grey digital divide. The articles were filtered according to the relevance for grey digital divide in the present age. Literature review spanned over a 5 years’ timeline to discuss the current trends on the topic. Results: Results indicate a rising problem of ageing, mainly in developed countries. Grey digital divide constitutes a major challenge for elderly to participate and benefit from the digital revolution. Elderly face problems for basic tasks such as booking tickets or renewing bus cards to claiming old-age benefits because most of the systems are digitized. Another challenge is the social exclusion faced by elderly because they cannot connect with peers through digital networks due to lack of digital skills. This situation is also observed in developing countries, although in developing countries elderly get immediate help from family members due to the family system of joint living. Implications and future directions: A practical implication of this research can be a full-scale fieldwork in different countries of the world to further understand the grey digital divide. Joint collaboration between ICT and healthcare industry may result in revolutionizing of ergonomic ICT products and services which are elderly-friendly. It would be interesting to know how culture impacts grey digital divide across various countries.

Elderly Forgotten? Digital Exclusion in the Information Age and the Rising Grey Digital Divide

BACKGROUND
The high volume and pace of research has posed challenges to researchers, policymakers and practitioners wanting to understand the overall impact of the pandemic on children and young people's mental health. We aimed to search for and review the evidence from epidemiological studies to answer the question: how has mental health changed in the general population of children and young people?


METHODS
Four databases (Medline, CINAHL, EMBASE and PsychINFO) were searched in October 2021, with searches updated in February 2022. We aimed to identify studies of children or adolescents with a mean age of 18 years or younger at baseline, that reported change on a validated mental health measure from prepandemic to during the pandemic. Abstracts and full texts were double-screened against inclusion criteria and quality assessed using a risk of bias tool. Studies were narratively synthesised, and meta-analyses were performed where studies were sufficiently similar.


RESULTS
6917 records were identified, and 51 studies included in the review. Only four studies had a rating of high quality. Studies were highly diverse in terms of design, setting, timing in relation to the pandemic, population, length of follow-up and choice of measure. Methodological heterogeneity limited the potential to conduct meta-analyses across studies. Whilst the evidence suggested a slight deterioration on some measures, overall, the findings were mixed, with no clear pattern emerging.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings highlight the need for a more harmonised approach to research in this field. Despite the sometimes-inconsistent results of our included studies, the evidence supports existing concerns about the impact of Covid-19 on children's mental health and on services for this group, given that even small changes can have a significant impact on provision at population level. Children and young people must be prioritised in pandemic recovery, and explicitly considered in planning for any future pandemic response.

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Annual Research Review: The impact of Covid-19 on psychopathology in children and young people worldwide: systematic review of studies with pre- and within-pandemic data.

In this narrative review, the relationships between digitalisation and the mental health status among children and youths will be discussed first. Second, amidst the pandemic, parents and children have much more time to spend together at home, so parenting plays a more significant role in determining children’s wellbeing. Therefore, how different parenting styles impact digitalisation and the mental health experienced by children and youths will be assessed. This narrative review aims to investigate the parenting conditions needed for children and youths to benefit from the growth of digitalisation, so that policies for digital transformation can be recommended. The outputs of this narrative review include recommending the endeavours of digital transformation that involve indiscriminately active inclusion and facilitating privileged young people, as well as their less advantaged counterparts, to maximise the advantages digitalisation offers.

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Digitalisation, Parenting, and Children’s Mental Health: What Are the Challenges and Policy Implications?

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed the need for internet connectivity and technological devices across the population, but especially among school-aged children. For a large proportion of pupils, access to a connected computer nowadays makes the difference between being able to keep up with their educational development and falling badly behind. This paper provides a detailed account of the digitally deprived children in Europe, according to the latest available wave of the European Union – Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). We find that 5.4% of school-aged children in Europe are digitally deprived and that differences are large across countries. Children that cohabit with low-educated parents, in poverty or in severe material deprivation are those most affected. 

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Digitally Deprived Children in Europe

The sudden health and economic crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic affords an opportunity to examine the impact of economic disruption to children and families. Any negative effects on the well-being of children are important to consider in relation to both short- and long-term outcomes. Using pre-pandemic and mid-pandemic waves of the longitudinal Growing Up in Ireland study, we examined whether the impact of economic disruption was equivalent for families who were (or were not) financially vulnerable pre-pandemic. We then investigated whether economic disruption was associated with a negative effect on the emotional well-being of 12-year-olds, and if there was evidence for such a negative effect being mediated through a lack of material resources or strain on family dynamics. Our results indicated that middle-income rather than lowest-income families experienced the most economic disruption, likely reflecting the sector-specific nature of business closures in the pandemic. Families who were financially vulnerable pre-pandemic were less likely to have had suitable resources for homeschooling. Both falls in income and strain in family relationships, such as arguing more with their parents, were associated with poorer scores on a measure of the child’s emotional well-being. The emergency income support payment introduced at the start of the pandemic appeared to have a protective effect on the association between family income loss and child well-being, which has wider implications for policy on child poverty.

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The Effect of Pandemic-Related Economic Disruption on Young Adolescents in Ireland

Background: Social isolation is strongly associated with poor mental health. The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing social restrictions disrupted young people's social interactions and resulted in several periods during which school closures necessitated online learning. We hypothesise that digitally excluded young people would demonstrate greater deterioration in their mental health than their digitally connected peers during this time. Methods: We analysed representative mental health data from a sample of UK 10-15-year-olds (N = 1387); Understanding Society collected the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in 2017-19 and thrice during the pandemic (July 2020, November 2020 and March 2021). We employed cross-sectional methods and longitudinal latent growth curve modelling to describe trajectories of adolescent mental health for participants with and without access to a computer or a good internet connection for schoolwork. Outcomes: Adolescent mental health had a quadratic trajectory during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the highest mean Total Difficulties score around December 2020. The worsening and recovery of mental health during the pandemic was greatly pronounced among those without access to a computer, although we did not find evidence for a similar effect among those without a good internet connection. Interpretation: Digital exclusion, as indicated by lack of access to a computer, is a tractable risk factor that likely compounds other adversities facing children and young people during periods of social isolation. Funding: British Psychological Society; School of the Biological Sciences, University of Cambridge; NIHR Applied Research Centre; Medical Research Council; Economic and Social Research Council; and Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge.

https://medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.11.25.21266853v1.full.pdf

Sakshi Ghai

Papers

Digital exclusion predicts worse mental health among adolescents during COVID-19