城市老年人数字融入中的代际支持机制与家庭权力重构

Intergenerational Support Mechanisms and Family Power Reconfiguration in the Digital Inclusion of Urban Older Adults

摘要: 数字技术已成为社会运行的基础设施，但老年群体在数字接入、技能与应用层面普遍面临困境。既有研究多从个体素养视角解释老年数字鸿沟，忽视了数字使用是嵌入在家庭代际互动中的社会过程。本研究超越个体素养的单一视角，基于17组城市社区老年人与成年子女的配对访谈和现场观察，采用扎根理论与类型分析方法，系统考察代际数字支持的形成机制、实践模式及其对家庭权力关系的影响。研究发现：老年人优先向子女求助的行为，由技术迭代所导致的“持续性去熟练化”、数字风险下的家庭信任转移以及孝道伦理共同推动；代际数字支持可归纳为操作替代、技术教学、远程协助和完全托管四种模式，这四种模式构成了从操作执行权到数字身份控制权逐层让渡的权力谱系代际数字支持虽有助于弥合功能性数字鸿沟，却也导致家庭权威的重新配置、老年人数字依附内化与数字照料劳动的性别化，并重塑了家庭代际关系。在此基础上，研究提出“数字治理的家庭化”与“被代理的参与”两个核心概念，用以揭示数字适应成本向家庭转移的结构逻辑，并反思当前数字包容政策重形式而轻自主的局限，既为数字反哺理论引入权力分析的路径，也为积极老龄化政策提供家庭视角的批判性反思。

Abstract: Digital technologies have become the infrastructure of social operation, yet older adults generally face difficulties in digital access, skills, and usage. Existing studies mostly explain the digital divide among older adults from an individual literacy perspective, overlooking that digital use is a social process embedded in family intergenerational interactions. Transcending the singular lens of individual literacy, this study draws on paired interviews and field observations with 17 older adults and their adult children in urban communities, and employs grounded theory and typological analysis to systematically examine the formation mechanisms, practice patterns, and impact on family power relations of intergenerational digital support. The findings indicate that older adults’ preference for seeking help from their children is jointly driven by persistent deskilling caused by technological iteration, the transfer of familial trust under digital risks, and the ethics of filial piety. Intergenerational digital support can be categorized into four modes, namely, operation substitution, technical instruction, remote assistance, and full proxy, which constitute a power spectrum where operational execution rights are progressively ceded to digital identity control. While such support helps bridge the functional digital divide, it also reconfigures family authority, internalizes digital dependency among older adults, and genders digital care labor, thereby reshaping intergenerational relations. Building on these findings, the study proposes two core concepts, domestication of digital governance and participation by proxy, to uncover the structural logic of shifting digital adaptation costs onto families and to critique the limitations of current digital inclusion policies that prioritize form over autonomy. This approach introduces a power analysis perspective into digital reverse mentoring theory and offers a critical reflection from a family perspective for active aging policies.