From Resistance to Resilience: Towards an Age-Sensitive Digital Literacy Acceptance Model

The rise of digital technologies in the workplace has challenged employee resilience to learning and skills development. Older workers often face unique challenges in acquiring and utilising digital skills, which are further influenced by their attitudes and perceptions. This chapter synthesises evidence on older workers’ attitudes towards digital literacy and its implications for workplace engagement, performance, personal resilience, and professional development.

A structured search was conducted across major academic databases, including Web of Science, Scopus, PsycINFO, PubMed, and ProQuest, using keywords and synonyms for ‘attitudes’, ‘digital literacy/skills’, ‘older workers’, and ‘workplace’. We identified 1,002 papers in our initial search. Articles published in English were screened for relevance, with inclusion criteria focusing on participants aged 50 and above, workplace contexts, and studies that explored attitudes or perspectives towards digital skills. The authors identified 47 studies eligible for data extraction. Data extraction included study characteristics, demographic information, findings on attitudes, and barriers or facilitators to digital literacy adoption. The synthesis highlights key themes, such as resistance to change, motivation, common barriers such as ageism, fear of technology and a lack of targeted training, as well as facilitators like personalised digital skill programs, perceived social support, resilience, and supportive organisational policies. The findings underscore the interplay between attitudes and digital literacy in shaping older workers’ experiences in the workplace, and an age-sensitive conceptual model for digital acceptance is proposed.