Hugs, Bible Study, and Speakeasies: Designing for Older Adults’ Multimodal Connectedness

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Older adults can experience significant changes to their social networks as they age, triggering changes in their social connection practices. In this paper, we extend research on older adults' connectedness behaviors using a multimodal connectedness framing---that is, how they engage with others across platforms, devices, and modalities. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study, we investigate how older adults navigate a major change or infrastructural breakdown in their social routines. We conducted a survey with 146 U.S.-based older adults (65+), and follow-up interviews with a subset of 23 survey respondents. Findings revealed the resilience and innovation with which older adults adapted their behaviors across multiple modalities to maintain social relationships and playfully connect with others in person and online. Using these findings, we propose that research on designing for aging extend beyond designing for connection in the smart home; we argue for a design agenda that prioritizes designing for smart relationships with the potential to persist across spaces via multimodal connectedness.