They tried. The interface changed again. The password reset failed. They stopped trying.
Literal meaning: Tech abandonment describes the process by which people — primarily older adults — stop using digital technologies they previously used, or decline to adopt new ones, because the cognitive, physical, or financial demands of continued use have exceeded what they can or are willing to manage. The term distinguishes active abandonment from never having adopted.
Origin: The concept was documented in digital inclusion research from around 2015, as the gap between the “ageing in place” technology aspiration — older people supported by digital health tools, remote monitoring, and digital services — and the reality of older users’ experiences became apparent. Research by Cornelia Cotten and colleagues documented technology abandonment patterns; the AARP’s technology research programme produced consistent data on abandonment rates across different technology types.
Withdrawal from digital participation after a threshold of complexity, cost, or frustration — a rational response to systems not designed with you in mind.
The Appeal: For individuals, abandonment is often a rational response. The costs — cognitive load, financial outlay, time investment, frustration — genuinely exceed the benefits for systems that do not work well for the user. The decision to stop using a poorly designed system is not a failure of adaptability.
The Friction: Tech abandonment has cumulative consequences that are not visible at the moment of abandonment. Digital Exclusion follows: services that have shifted to digital-only become inaccessible. Banking, healthcare appointment booking, government benefit claims, and social connection — all increasingly digital, all requiring sustained engagement with systems that may have driven the abandonment decision. Ageism (Digital) is the upstream cause: systems designed without older users produce the frustration that produces abandonment. Technostress — stress caused by technology use — is a documented predictor of abandonment. The design that caused the abandonment rarely changes in response to it, because the people who left are no longer counted in the engagement data.
Why This Matters: Tech abandonment makes visible the endpoint of a design process that excluded certain users from the start. The person who stopped using the system is not failing to adapt — they are responding rationally to a system that did not work for them. The design failure happened long before the abandonment decision.
Related terms: Ageism (Digital) · Digital Ageing · Digital Exclusion · Technostress · Inclusive Design · Universal Design
Read more:
- Impact of the Abandonment of Assistive Technologies for Mobility on Older Adults — Sawadogo, A. R., et al. (2022). Assistive Technology
- Impact of Internet Use on Loneliness and Contact with Others Among Older Adults: Cross-Sectional Analysis — Cotten, S. R., Anderson, W. A., & McCullough, B. M. (2013). Journal of Medical Internet Research, 15(2), e39.
- Older Adults’ Perspectives on Using Digital Technology to Maintain Good Mental Health: Interactive Group Study — Andrews, J. A., Brown, L. J. E., Hawley, M. S., & Astell, A. J. (2019). Journal of Medical Internet Research, 21(2), e11694