<aside>
🎯
Summary: A narrative review of how digital literacy in later life is defined, experienced and supported, with in-depth sections on India, Iran and Vietnam.
Status: Group coursework, Seminar/Research "IT for an Ageing Society", University of Siegen, 2026. Currently in grading; no abstract yet.
My contribution: I wrote the Vietnam section and the synthesis across the three countries.
Co-authors: [add names, with their permission]
</aside>
Questions
The review was guided by five questions: who older adults are in India, Vietnam and Iran and how they are perceived; how digital literacy in later life is defined and measured; which barriers shape digital participation and how they interact; which interventions and policies exist and what makes them effective; and how all of this differs across the three countries, with what gaps remaining.
Method
- A narrative review in two stages: first the global landscape, then in-depth country reviews. We chose India, Iran and Vietnam as contrasting cases that are all ageing while digitalising quickly.
- Sources came mainly from Google Scholar and the ACM Digital Library, with grey literature such as government decisions and reports from international bodies used for demographics, policies and programmes. Searches ran from May to September 2026.
- Material that exists only in a national language was read in the original by group members who read Vietnamese and Persian.
- Thematic analysis: barriers were condensed into five categories (psychological, technical, socio-economic, safety, and health and support) and applied across all countries.
My contribution
- Vietnam section: demographic ageing, how older adults are viewed, digital literacy and its measurement, barriers, policies and community programmes, and research gaps.
- Synthesis: commonalities across the three countries, a short portrait of each, and the research gaps across the literature.
What the review found
- There is no agreed definition or measure of digital literacy, and most studies assess acceptance, ownership or use rather than competence.
- Barriers are interdependent, so digital exclusion cannot be explained by missing skills alone.
- All three countries show a digital inequality paradox: the older adults who would gain most, such as rural, poorer and less educated people, face the steepest barriers.
From the Vietnam section
- Vietnam is projected to move from an ageing to an aged society in about 18 years (UN DESA Population Division, 2026).
- In the 2018 national survey of people aged 60 and over, only 12.7% had internet access (Vu et al., 2020).
- The community Intergenerational Self-Help Club model reaches only about 15% of older people so far (United Nations Viet Nam, 2025).
- Vietnamese research relies mainly on quantitative surveys in major cities. Qualitative work, ethnic-minority and rural older adults, and how to communicate rights and benefits to older people are under-researched.