Adoption of Conceptual Model for Smartphones among Older People

Abstract

A critical issue is the acceptance of current modern smartphone technology by older people. Smartphones are inventions that presently offer significant advantages to help individuals. However, around the world, every older user wants to perform tasks that are more user-friendly, and near their personal preferences. Considering these factors, this research aimed to explain, identify, and examine multiple external factors and usability for acceptance, adoption, and usage of smartphones by the 45-year-old-and-above population. To achieve the research objective, a new conceptual model, the smartphone acceptance model for older people, was proposed; it was principally based on Technology acceptance model (TAM), in order to identify the essential aging factors that may have a significant influence on smartphone usability, usage, acceptance, and adoption among older people. The data collection was conducted through a questionnaire that was administered to 240 persons above 40. Overall findings showed that multiple external factors such as comfortability (CA), social influence (SI), perceived enjoyment (PE), fear of failure (FOF), perceived ease of use (PEU), perceived usefulness (PU), behavioral intention (BI), compatibility (COM), and attitude towards use (ATU) had significant impacts in the adoption of smartphones among older persons. For hypothesis testing, the collected data were additionally analyzed, and it was found that of the ten hypotheses, nine were positively significant overall. SEM-PLS and SPSS were used to analyze the collected data, and the findings were based on the supported hypotheses. This research contribution can be seen in terms the identification and examination of external factors that hinder or empower acceptance of smartphones among the older population. Moreover, it will help developers and manufacturers of smartphones concerning aspects that are appropriate for smartphone and app design, particularly for older users.