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What Older Adults Really Need From AI
The loss of personal autonomy rarely happens all at once. One day you realize you’ve stopped driving at night. Then your daughter starts handling the taxes. Then your doctor explains your options to her instead of to you. And you’re sitting right there. Nobody means any harm, but things have changed.That is what the loss of autonomy often looks like for older adults. A slow accumulation of moments in which others start making decisions for us — in which we hand over control of our lives to others.Artificial intelligence can push back against that slow erosion.When companies design and market AI products for older adults, two questions tend to dominate: Is it easy to use? And is it useful? Those are sensible questions.That framework is known as the Technology Acceptance Model, or TAM, and it has been the dominant lens for studying how people adopt new technologies. It has yielded valuable insights, and it makes intuitive sense. If you can reduce the learning curve, make the interface intuitive and demonstrate clear practical value, acceptance is much more likely.But a new peer-reviewed study suggests that the TAM, regardless of its merits, is looking at the wrong priority for older adults. Ease of use and usefulness are just the price of admission. They might get someone to try a product, but real adoption comes from the user concluding that the product can change how she feels about herself and her life.Published in May 2026 in Frontiers in Public Health, a study by Wang and colleagues at Donghua University surveyed 418 older adults who were active users of AI-assisted elder care platforms. The researchers set out to understand not just whether these adults used AI, but how AI affected their mental wellbeing — and most importantly, why.They tested five variables: the two TAM factors (ease of use and usefulness) and the three basic psychological needs identified by Self-Determination Theory (SDT): autonomy, competence, and relatedness. SDT holds that human beings have three universal needs whose satisfaction drives wellbeing and motivation:Autonomy — the sense that we are the author of our own choices, not controlled by others.Competence — the sense that we are capable and effective in our activities, andRelatedness — the sense of meaningful connection to other people.The results were striking. All five variables had significant positive effects on mental wellbeing. But autonomy had the greatest impact, by a wide margin.Feeling in control of our own life ma...
Adults must do their part to protect children from AI [letter]
I read with dread the recent piece in LNP | LancasterOnline on artificial intelligence and education (“Pa. education secretary, Lancaster County educators talk risk, benefits of AI at Hourglass Forum,” May 8).I use AI every day. (I used Claude.ai to help edit this letter.) One doesn’t need to learn to use AI. It’s easy — too easy. Students don’t need bots created for them; they can do it themselves.Students need to spend their time deep in a novel, building something, playing music, drawing, dancing or wandering around the world with their friends, rather than with their noses in a monitor, having their brains scooped out like ice cream.Adults have too long micromanaged childhood, all movement via parental chauffeurs, leaving children helpless against the siren song of the screen.Our primary challenges are human.In addition, we have the challenge of rogue AI potentially eliminating humans and turning the universe into paper clips. Or nefarious actors using this exquisitely easy tool to do unimaginable harm. They are already using social media to devastating effect (I’m looking at you, Jew haters).The “cloud” isn’t floating ethereally in the sky: It’s enormous buildings, some the size of small towns, that require electricity and water, and emit noise.Teachers use AI to reduce tedious tasks and come up with material. Fine. Kids are using social media and AI, with well-known dismal results. Not so fine.We adults must do what we can to protect our children from this digital heroin. We must provide soil, water, light and freedom — real books, pencils, tools, traditions — for them to flourish into fully human beings.Christopher BrooksLancaster What to Read Next
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