Currently submitted to: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Mar 23, 2026
Open Peer Review Period: Apr 1, 2026 - May 27, 2026
(currently open for review)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Blending faith and technology: Spiritual resources shape elderly technology use in Hong Kong
ABSTRACT
Background:
The rapid expansion of digital technologies alongside a growing aging population has reshaped contemporary society. While digital tools offer new opportunities for social connectedness, older adults often encounter barriers to technology adoption and must adapt to increasingly digital environments. Although prior research has examined factors influencing older adults’ use of technology, limited attention has been given to the role of religious beliefs and spiritual resources. This gap is notable given the potential of spirituality to shape individuals’ attitudes, practices, and sense of agency in engaging with technology.
Objective:
This study aims to examine how spiritual resources influence technology-mediated communication among elderly residents in religious care settings in Hong Kong.
Methods:
This study employed a qualitative research design using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). In-depth interviews were conducted with 18 elderly residents, whose average age was 85.75 years (SD = 11.52). IPA was used to explore how individuals with varying levels of spiritual resources make sense of technology use, communicate about it, and integrate it into their daily routines.
Results:
The findings indicate that spiritual frameworks provide interpretive resources that shape how older adults make meaning of technology use. These frameworks also facilitate hybrid communication practices that combine traditional and digital approaches, and influence individuals’ sense of agency in making technology-related decisions, even within institutional constraints. Participants with higher levels of spiritual resources demonstrated richer communication vocabularies, developed innovative spiritual-digital networks, and exercised greater boundary management compared to those with fewer spiritual resources. Overall, spirituality enabled residents to integrate technology into their existing worldviews while partially mitigating structural limitations.
Conclusions:
The study highlights the important role of spiritual frameworks in shaping technology-mediated communication among older adults. It underscores the value of incorporating spiritual perspectives into research and practice aimed at understanding and supporting technology use in aging populations.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.