Sharing Virtual Meals Among the Elderly

An ethnographic and quantitative study of the role of smartphones in distanced social eating in rural Japan

Abstract

This research note compiles data from ethnographic and quantitative research on smartphone use among elderly women aged 65 and over in rural Kşchi, Japan. Rise Sasaki, Laura Haapio-Kirk, and Yumi Kimura created an intervention in collaboration with the social welfare office in Tosa-chş, Kşchi. A group chat on the social media application LINE was created as a digital space for older adults to freely discuss food. Combining insights from a year of ethnographic fieldwork with data from questionnaires conducted before and after the intervention, together with thorough interviews, this research proposes an interventionist anthropological approach towards social nutrition that takes advantage of the recent rise in smartphone usage among elderly populations.