Observing Social Connectedness in a Digital Dance Program for Older Adults: An EMCA Approach

Sustainable societies require healthy populations that are inclusive of all ages in meaningful social engagement. Given the digital nature of contemporary social life, there is substantial interest in how older adults interact with information communication technology (ICT) and new media. For ageing rural populations, ICT is considered opportune to address increasing social isolation and loneliness by connecting older people in digital society. Understanding how older adults experience and achieve social connectedness through ICT is important to inform the development of programs and services designed for their meaningful engagement in social activities. More data is needed, particularly for people living with cognitive challenges, and in rural areas. But there are methodological challenges for this type of research involving this demographic. People living with dementia, for example, may depend on third party support to participate in programs and to articulate experience using verbal language. This paper introduces an international expansion of a study “Improving social inclusion for Canadians with dementia and their carers through Sharing Dance,” [1] a digitally-delivered dance program. The expansion study will examine the impact of the program for social connectedness in an international context, using similar data collection methods to the Canadian study, while adding an additional layer of analysis using ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EM/CA). This paper will both share findings from the Canadian study and introduce the conceptualization of the international study that builds on its foundation. A sample EM/CA analysis is provided, illustrating observable behaviour for comparison in different contexts, reducing dependence upon verbal language.