Marble.us

Either as a result of living alone, technological advances, lack of close family ties, or reduced connections with their own network of friends, the elderly suffer from inability to actively participate in the community activities, which eventually establishes a great feeling of loneliness, depression, and remoteness from the society. It’s a well-known fact that with age people have the tendency of losing their connections with their friendship networks (a.k.a. experiencing age-related losses) and hereby, they also find it extremely hard to initiate new friendships. Even though that the internet, as perceived by the youngsters, serves as a helpful tool for connecting people all around the world, many studies prove the inability of the seniors to adapt the digital life, a phenomena categorizing the elderly as “late adopters”.

Technology designed to be user-friendly still is perceived as technology, something outside the comfort-zone or (intuitive) social mind-set of elderly.

Marbe.Us is an interactive table which serves as an intermediate between the elderly, helping them to all come together by allowing our seniors to schedule activities, and thereby, allowing the build-up of a happier, more pro-active community, entirely eliminating the complexity of the digital world. By implementing a shared activity calendar within the table without the need for screens, people can easily discover, join and create activities. This naturally eradicates the inability of the elderly to get in touch with each other, as people meet and chat at the central table. This also eliminates the barrier for an active participation in the community activities, while the social system requires few time from corporate staff. What’s more, Marble.Us serves a great opportunity for our seniors to have a lot of fun while doing so, as the central table is connected to the users' home through a connected fruit bowl. The fruit bowl brings elderly aware when activities are scheduled 30 days ahead by a clear led-circle. The interactive table, which has been especially designed for fluent elderly use, can be found in locations that are most comfortable for the seniors, easily reachable, and also very easy to use, e.g. in nursing homes, or community centers. By using a personalized keytoken, elderly can immediately join and schedule activities on the day they want. ‘Marble us together’ and connect in nostalgic fashion around the table.