ABSTRACT
Mobile phone usage by third agers can be categorised into instrumental and ritualised practices. Instrumental practices provide life convenience; ritualised practices cultivate emotional attachment. The chapter shows how third agers in China use apps on mobile phone to deal with daily activities such as banking, scanning QR code, paying gas/electricity fees, and navigating maps. The chapter depicts the phenomenon of how mobile apps ‘cultivate’ third agers to use online services habitually. The chapter shows that third agers need to acquire digital literacy to operate both online and offline. The chapter also depicts how the combination of online and offline use reconfigures third agers’ daily lives and explores how they adjust to the challenges of digital society.
