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Most nations' rural regions are experiencing faster population ageing than urban areas, resulting in a larger proportion of elderly citizens. Lower population density and more geographically distributed people make it more difficult and costly to create and maintain extensive service infrastructure in metropolitan areas, such as adequate roads and telecommunications services (Arcury et al., 2005). As a result, rural residents have restricted access to services and activities, and their status may worsen when paired with weaker socioeconomic situations. This disadvantages the rural population in compared to urban populations, and it may be particularly troublesome for elderly people, who may suffer a higher risk of social isolation, limited mobility, a lack of support, and health care shortfalls as a result of where they reside (UNECE, 2017).
The United Nations defines older people as those aged 60 and up. It is frequently defined as 65 and above. According to the United Nations (2013), the population of elderly people will more than double between 2013 and 2050, rising from 841 million to more than 2,000 million. It is projected that by 2047, elderly adults will outnumber children for the first time. The number of people aged 60 and above is anticipated to double by 2050 and more than treble by 2100, growing from 962 million in 2017 to 2.1 billion in 2050 and 3.1 billion in 2100, according to World Population Prospects: the 2017 Revision (Sanderson, Scherbov & Gerland, 2017). In turn, the older population is growing older. In 2013 the proportion of people over 80 years within the older population was 14% and it is projected to reach (19%) by 2050 (Coto, Lizano, Mora, & Fuentes, 2017). The authors reiterate that by that year, there will be 392 million people over 80 years worldwide, which means more than three times the present number.
In the demography of Ghana, the elderly, people aged 60 and above account for approximately 7% of the total population, out of these majority of the elderly people live in rural areas (Mba, 2010). Mba stated that the ageing population of Ghana has been accelerated by several factors including rapid fertility decline and advancements in public health, personal hygiene, sanitation, and nutrition. The impact of rural-to-urban migration, as well as the stronger external family ties, have contributed to the rural population's declining growth. The elderly population like most people in Ghana needs to be socially and emotionally connected in society, a situation accelerated globally by the introduction of information communication technology and smartphone technologies enabling individuals to communicate with virtually anyone at any time (Sum et al., 2008).
The use of mobile phone technology allows instantaneous communication with others and has become a prominent method of socialization. The covid-19 pandemic has taught us that the internet is now the new way of communication, one that has forever changed the way people live and communicate. Many rural elderly have the desire of living the same life as their counterpart in the cities; however, the rural elderly suffer the deepest social and economic disadvantage where social integration and interaction is likely to be limited to watching TV and attending local folk activities such as a funeral, child naming among others. The problem of the high dependency ratio among rural dwellers makes it difficult to adopt the technology. Mba (2010) added that in Africa, particularly in the Ghanaian context, the majority of persons aged 60 and above are economically dependent. OConnor, Fuller, and Cortez (2018), opined that technology may benefit older adults in rural areas, however, a sizable minority of these elderly often do not use it. Technologies such as social media tools are low-hanging fruits allowing for greater connection through video-mediated visits and engagement in virtual communities among the aged (Dornovan & Blazer,2020).