Loneliness And The Role Of Humanitarian Technology
According to Eurostat, by 2070, 30% of the population of the European Union will be 65 or over. If we consider that the percentage was 20% in 2022, this means that in 45 years’ time it will have risen by 50%, a very significant increase which has made this issue a matter of public concern because it affects millions of people of many different profiles. How can we meet the needs of our elderly in a satisfactory and effective way?
Most people's preferred option is to grow old in their own homes. In general, when the time comes, we prefer to be independent for as long as possible and rely on friends and family for help when the occasion arises. However, what happens when people's social networks are not sufficient?
Often, the elderly suffer from loneliness because growing old at home without supportive community networks or technology can increase people's isolation and, therefore, the negative implications for individual physical and emotional well-being as well as for social cohesion.
The role of humanitarian technology
Against this backdrop, various initiatives to address these challenges using different strategies and policies are coming to the forefront. In this area, humanitarian technology offers new opportunities to strengthen social connections, empower communities, and promote mutual support.
Thanks to a combination of expert knowledge and the use of AI, conversational assistants act as a useful solution, as we have experienced at Deloitte, to supplement the range of social services covering these situations of vulnerability.
This technology, which joins together the three aspects of people, processes and technology, functions solely by voice, which makes it possible to eliminate the digital gap and provide people with 24/7 support. It has an array of functionalities. These range from alarms and warning messages that can be set by social workers, to reminders facilitating social interaction with family and social carers, also via video calls. Such devices can help with household tasks such as cooking, switching on and off lights, regulating temperature, among others, and have functionalities that merely serve an entertainment purpose and offer personalised multimedia content.
In parallel, these solutions help medical services and social carers to control and monitor the people in their care using a console linked to the devices. This enables adapted content to be managed, users’ progress to be monitored and their needs to be detected pro-actively through alerts, data collection, statistics and indicators.
The role of social services
All of the people involved in the social services ecosystem, who must continue to work on and protect the rights of our elderly, cover their essential needs and promote their autonomy, play a vital role in implementing these technologies. It is therefore Deloitte's honour to continue to support the 2025 European Social Services Awards, an important space providing recognition for the entities in the sector which have such a positive impact on our society.