The Paradox of Proximity: Artificial Intelligence, Gender, and the Cultural Fractures of Care in Later Life

Abstract

Background: The rise of digital platforms and algorithmic systems has transformed late-life communication, presenting artificial intelligence (AI) tools as novel mechanisms for mitigating social isolation among older adults. Despite the growing deployment of assistive technologies, critical empirical inquiry into how AI-mediated communication intersects with gendered life courses, cultural expectations of care, and youth out-migration in African contexts remains sparse.

Objective: This study examined how AI-driven communication technologies intersect with gender and cultural dynamics to influence social connectedness and loneliness among older adults in Nigeria.

Methodology: A qualitative interpretive phenomenological approach was utilised, drawing on the Modernisation Theory of Ageing and reflexive thematic analysis. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposively selected sample of 25 older adults in Nigeria (10 men and 15 women, aged 65 to 81 years) with high educational attainment.

Result: While digital devices and smart systems provided continuous informational contact across transcontinental distances, they created an illusion of proximity that failed to meet cultural expectations of embodied, physical care. The findings revealed distinct gendered patterns: older women actively utilised digital platforms for transnational kin-keeping whilst mourning the loss of physical nurturing roles, whereas older men experienced technological isolation as a direct loss of public authority and communal prestige. Furthermore, voice-activated and conversational AI interfaces systematically failed to accommodate Nigerian-accented speech and indigenous languages, producing algorithmic erasure and user alienation despite the participants' advanced formal literacy. Participants strongly rejected synthetic companionship, viewing machine-mediated care for older adults as culturally dissonant, emotionally hollow, and an ethical infringement on domestic privacy.

Conclusion: AI-driven communication tools cannot replace the physical, intergenerational co-presence central to African elder care systems. To meaningfully alleviate late-life isolation without reproducing inequality or eroding cultural dignity, assistive technologies must be developed and deployed with vernacular linguistic inclusivity, gender-responsive literacy initiatives, and robust ethical data governance.