Background: Advancements in science and various technologies have resulted in people having access to better health care, a good quality of life, and better economic situations, enabling humans to live longer than ever before. Research shows that the problems of loneliness and social isolation are common among older adults, affecting psychological and physical health. Information and communication technology (ICT) plays an important role in alleviating social isolation and loneliness. Objective: The aim of this review is to explore ICT solutions for reducing social isolation or loneliness among older adults, the purpose of ICT solutions, and the evaluation focus of these solutions. This study particularly focuses on customized ICT solutions that either are designed from scratch or are modifications of existing off-the-shelf products that cater to the needs of older adults. Methods: A scoping literature review was conducted. A search across 7 databases, including ScienceDirect, Association for Computing Machinery, PubMed, IEEE Xplore, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Web of Science, was performed, targeting ICT solutions for reducing and managing social isolation and loneliness among older adults. Articles published in English from 2010 to 2020 were extracted and analyzed. Results: From the review of 39 articles, we identified 5 different purposes of customized ICT solutions focusing on reducing social isolation and loneliness. These were social communication, social participation, a sense of belonging, companionship, and feelings of being seen. The mapping of purposes of ICT solutions with problems found among older adults indicates that increasing social communication and social participation can help reduce social isolation problems, whereas fulfilling emotional relationships and feeling valued can reduce feelings of loneliness. In terms of customized ICT solution types, we found the following seven different categories: social network, messaging services, video chat, virtual spaces or classrooms with messaging capabilities, robotics, games, and content creation and management. Most of the included studies (30/39, 77%) evaluated the usability and acceptance aspects, and few studies (11/39, 28%) focused on loneliness or social isolation outcomes. Conclusions: This review highlights the importance of discussing and managing social isolation and loneliness as different but related concepts and emphasizes the need for future research to use suitable outcome measures for evaluating ICT solutions based on the problem. Even though a wide range of customized ICT solutions have been developed, future studies need to explore the recent emerging technologies, such as the Internet of Things and augmented or virtual reality, to tackle social isolation and loneliness among older adults. Furthermore, future studies should consider evaluating social isolation or loneliness while developing customized ICT solutions to provide more robust data on the effectiveness of the solutions.

中文翻译：

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用于减少老年人社会孤立和孤独感的定制信息和通信技术：范围审查

背景：科学和各种技术的进步使人们能够获得更好的医疗保健、良好的生活质量和更好的经济状况，使人类的寿命比以往任何时候都长。研究表明，孤独和社会孤立的问题在老年人中很常见，影响心理和身体健康。信息和通信技术 (ICT) 在缓解社会孤立和孤独感方面发挥着重要作用。客观的：本综述的目的是探索 ICT 解决方案，以减少老年人的社会孤立或孤独感、ICT 解决方案的目的以及这些解决方案的评估重点。本研究特别关注定制的 ICT 解决方案，这些解决方案要么是从零开始设计，要么是对现有现成产品的修改，以满足老年人的需求。方法：进行了范围界定的文献回顾。对 7 个数据库进行了搜索，包括 ScienceDirect、计算机协会、PubMed、IEEE Xplore、PsycINFO、Scopus 和 Web of Science，目标是减少和管理老年人社会孤立和孤独感的 ICT 解决方案。提取并分析了2010年至2020年以英文发表的文章。结果：通过对 39 篇文章的回顾，我们确定了 5 种不同目的的定制 ICT 解决方案，重点是减少社会孤立和孤独感。这些是社会交流、社会参与、归属感、友谊和被看见的感觉。将 ICT 解决方案的目的与在老年人中发现的问题进行映射表明，增加社会交流和社会参与有助于减少社会孤立问题，而实现情感关系和感到被重视则可以减少孤独感。在定制的 ICT 解决方案类型方面，我们发现了以下七个不同的类别：社交网络、消息服务、视频聊天、具有消息功能的虚拟空间或教室、机器人技术、游戏以及内容创建和管理。大多数纳入的研究 (30/39, 77%) 评估了可用性和接受性方面，很少有研究 (11/39, 28%) 关注孤独或社会孤立的结果。结论：本综述强调了将社会孤立和孤独作为不同但相关的概念进行讨论和管理的重要性，并强调未来研究需要使用合适的结果措施来评估基于问题的 ICT 解决方案。尽管已经开发了广泛的定制 ICT 解决方案，但未来的研究需要探索最近的新兴技术，例如物联网和增强或虚拟现实，以解决老年人的社会孤立和孤独感。此外，未来的研究应考虑评估社会孤立或孤独感，同时开发定制的 ICT 解决方案，以提供有关解决方案有效性的更可靠的数据。