Resilience and Technostress: webinar recording

More of daily life keeps moving online. Banking, GP bookings, government forms, all migrating to a screen. For older people, that shift can bring real strain. It can also bring out real strength.

On Thursday 2 July, DECA hosted an online kōrero exploring both sides of that story. The recording is now live on YouTube.

Watch the video HERE, or view down below.

We were joined by two researchers who understand this territory from different angles.

Dr Dianne Wepa (Ngāti Kahungunu), Associate Professor in Māori Health at AUT, shared her research on how kaumātua stayed connected to whānau and health services through COVID-19 and Cyclone Gabrielle. Her work uses Kaupapa Māori methodology, and it points to something simple and important: resilience isn't an individual trait. It's built through whānau and community, especially when the clinic moves online and there's nobody around to help.

Melanie Stowell, a PhD candidate at the University of Auckland, brought her research on technostress and mental wellbeing in later life. Her findings name a barrier that rarely gets named in government digital strategy: the pressure of constantly having to keep up can itself become a source of harm.

Together, they talked about what digital change really means for older people, and what dignified, strengths based inclusion actually looks like. Not a deficit story. Not a story about people being "left behind." A story about what it takes to design systems that hold people, rather than push them out.

If you work with older people, design digital services, or care about someone navigating this shift, it's worth the watch.