Participation of Older Adults in Virtual Volunteering: A Qualitative Analysis

Virtual volunteering can be defined as a type of civic engagement where the volunteers perform their tasks using the Internet either from their home or other offsite locations. Although a comprehensive body of literature can be found concerning older adults' involvement in traditional face-to-face volunteering, few studies exist on Internet-based volunteering. This study takes the initiative to generate new knowledge on how the Internet can play an active role in facilitating volunteerism among older people. It explores the demographic characteristics, motivation, and types of tasks performed by older adults while volunteering in a virtual environment. Given the emerging support infrastructure to facilitate virtual volunteering among older adults, this study sought to better comprehend the profiles and motivations of older virtual volunteers. In particular, the study wishes to understand if parallels could be drawn between on-site volunteering and online volunteering among older adults. Correspondingly, the study also explores whether participation in virtual volunteering by older adults increased their sense of belonging. A qualitative inquiry is performed to address these issues. This study is an attempt to gather baseline empirical descriptions of these phenomena so that future research has the scope to refine the relevant theories in this field.