While print media is still popular among seniors, more and more seniors are using the internet, smartphones, and social media to stay connected and informed.
Developing tech-enabled products and services that assist us as we age is a relatively new frontier. However, the vision of a world where people in advanced years can meaningfully participate in society and overcome the physical and cognitive challenges of age is slowly but steadily becoming a reality.
With more than 34 million people over the age of 65, Japan is the oldest country in the world, and it already feels the effects that many countries will experience in the upcoming decades.
Our Japan Consumer Sentiment Survey carried out in March 2021 indicates that Japanese of all generations are looking to increase the quality and quantity of engagement they have with people from other generations.
By now, some readers will have heard of the Japanese concept of ‘ikigai’ that is becoming popularized by bloggers and life-advisors in western countries. Like so many words in Japanese, it is somewhat vague and legitimately translatable in a range of ways.
On many levels, Japan appears to ignore key elements of what westerners consider to comprise social modernity. One classic example is the profound lack of progress women have made in gaining meaningful roles in management. In this area, to name only one, Japan seems to trail other countries by decades.
Back in 2018 I published an article on LinkedIn titled, ‘Young and Careful: Japan’s Strangely Conservative Youth’. At the time of writing that piece it had, for some time, seemed to me that young people in Japan were going against the expected role of social change-maker that I and other foreigners may have expected.