Abstract:

Introduction:
Coping with coronavirus disease–2019 (COVID-19) included measures impacting life quality of elderly: stay-at-home orders, cancellation of social activities and events and limited-to-no visitation permitted in living facilities like hostels for elderly. Social isolation and disruption of routines resulted in increasing feelings of loneliness, anxiety and depression among the elderly population (Patel and Clark-Ginsberg, 2020), and further exacerbated health problems (David, 2020).
ICT (Information and Communications Technology) could help elderly people feel more connected, cared for and secure. However, adjusting to the revised functioning within unfamiliar infrastructures is not easy for oldest-old people. Many still refrain from active usage of ICT due to attitudinal barriers, previous negative experience with technology, concerns over cyber-crimes, complexity of instructions or simply due to lack of supportive learning environment. This is especially true for older immigrants from the FSU (Former Soviet Union), whose access to training in new technologies is hampered by language problems, poverty, and limited access to family support (Khvorostianov, 2017).

Methodology:
Drawing on grounded theory based qualitative analysis of 51 semi-structured interviews with FSU immigrants aged 81-89, the study specifically explores older users’ experiences of Zoom meetings, mastering during April-September 2019. Zoom is a proprietary video teleconferencing software program developed by Zoom Video Communications that had grown in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results:
The results reveal how interaction with care givers, family and neighbours constituted important learning opportunities for the older adults, in which they developed their skills in using of Zoom service. However, establishing potential learning situations and learning was not a straightforward matter, but surrounded by a multitude of barriers. Among the barriers that contributed to abandonment of Zoom by 12 participants were low technical characteristics of the available equipment, the difficulties associated with acquiring the necessary equipment (microphone, camera), as well as the lack of basic offline help.
39 participants successfully mastered basic Zoom service skills. Virtual socializing and online events have become commonplace for them and have gone a long way to keep them from being completely isolated in lockdown. However, elderly who better acquired digital skills had returned slower to regular activity and were more prone to unnecessary self-isolation between lockdowns.

Keywords:

Elderly immigrants from former Soviet Union, digital skills acquiring, long-life education, COVID-19, Israel, Information and Communications Technology.