In an article for Forbes, Joseph Coughlin, director of the AgeLab, provides tips for adult children planning to have difficult conversations with their parents about such topics as driving and housing. “Hanging up the keys or leaving the family home often places two sets of critical values at odds – freedom versus safety,” writes Coughlin.
Writing for Forbes, AgeLab Director Joseph Coughlin examines the importance of retirement planning, based off of a recent conversation he had with a Lyft driver. “Today’s retirement planning story must also add several chapters of imaginative, yet realistic, planning that go well beyond financial security and goal-setting alone,” writes Coughlin.
Joseph Coughlin, director of the AgeLab, writes for Forbes examines how new technologies could help people follow-through their New Year’s resolutions. Coughlin writes that marketing innovations that leverage “behavioral science insights are emerging to help with sustained behavioral change.”
Inc. has named Boston to its list of the 50 best places in America for starting a business thanks to the MIT AgeLab’s work developing a “Silicon Valley for the octogenarian set.” Inc. notes that the AgeLab has helped spawn “a cluster of age-tech startups launching products like wireless headphones (Eversound) and virtual reality headsets (Rendever) that are optimized for seniors.”
Joseph Coughlin, director of the AgeLab, writes for Quartz about ways that new technologies can be used to make aging more fun for today’s seniors. “By investing in such uncharted aspects of the longevity economy now, we may pave the way for ourselves to live longer, better—and perhaps with a smile,” writes Coughlin.
Writing for Forbes, research engineer Bryan Reimer examines how success can be measured as automated vehicles are introduced to our transportation system. “While automation may be the future,” writes Reimer, “the enabling technologies we are seeing today are pieces of a complex puzzle being assembled to build a picture of how automation will change the future of how we live and move.”
Joseph Coughlin, director of the AgeLab, writes for Barron’s about how senior citizens are becoming an increasingly dominant consumer market. “Older consumers will no longer put up with companies that address only basic physiological or safety needs,” writes Coughlin. “New demands in the older market are arising from higher-level drives, such as goals, aspirations, aesthetic preferences, social needs, and talents.”
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Dr. Joseph Coughlin, director of the AgeLab, writes that smart technologies and on-demand services could allow seniors to stay in their own homes. Coughlin notes that the freedom the connected home provides for choosing services, “is an enormous benefit not only for older adults’ wallets, but for their own sense of independence and personal control.”
In an article for Forbes, research engineer Bryan Reimer ponders how the integration of self-driving vehicles into our transportation system will evolve. “As we strive to automate, risks must be appropriately balanced with the benefits, much like how they are when it comes to the use of lifesaving drugs with known side effects,” concludes Reimer.
An MIT AgeLab survey finds that many Americans have unrealistic expectations for retirement, writes Richard Eisenberg for Forbes. Research scientist Chaiwoo Lee suggests that financial advisers use the survey results to “create messages and images and materials for potential clients and provide clients with a better education about life after career.”
In an article for The Wall Street Journal, Joseph Coughlin, director of the AgeLab, and research associate Lucas Yoquinto write that companies are increasingly designing aesthetically-pleasing and user-friendly technology for the elderly. “As the focus on older consumers’ preferences goes beyond the development of better products to the creation of new product categories, the experience of later life may improve substantially,” they explain.
CNBC reporter Lorie Konish speaks with Joseph Coughlin, director of the AgeLab, about some key questions around autonomous vehicles for retirees. “The older people who can't drive — whether it is a cognition issue, health issue, physical disability issue — who gets them in the car?” says Coughlin. “And if your mom’s not cognitively well enough to drive, does she ride in the robot car by herself?”
Writing for Forbes, Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, examines the increasing influence of AI in our lives. Coughlin concludes that in the absence of a human alternative, brief interactions could change our perception of an AI system from “a simple tool that ‘does stuff’ around the house, to a presence that is a real part of our social self.”
In an article for Forbes, AgeLab Director Joseph Coughlin writes about the physical and emotional impacts of social isolation and loneliness. Coughlin stresses the importance of “developing new solutions for our modern epidemic of social disconnectedness -- whether they are new technologies, community initiatives, forward-thinking policies, or just plain increased awareness.”
In an article for Forbes, AgeLab Director Joseph Coughlin explores how the advent of smart devices and the sharing economy could transform the senior housing industry. “Senior housing properties could become centers of services enabling aging in place in the home,” argues Coughlin, “forming a virtual pipeline to senior housing residences from assisted living to skilled nursing.”