午夜剧场

Interest in digitalization and ICT is growing across all research fields. This is also true in my specialty, public health nursing. For the past four years, I have been collaborating with the NPO Kirari Yoshijima Network in the Yoshijima district of Kawanishi Town, Yamagata Prefecture, exploring whether ICT can be used to support residents' daily lives and health management. Kirari Yoshijima Network is a rare example of a neighborhood association organization in Japan to which every household in the district belongs. Kawanishi Town is located in the southern part of Yamagata Prefecture and is a heavy snowfall area where residents are busy shoveling snow in the winter. The current population is approximately 15,000, with an aging rate of 37.3%. Over the past 20 years, the population has decreased and the birthrate has declined while the population aged, causing the functions of the neighborhood association to become a mere formality and unsustainable. Therefore, the neighborhood association was incorporated with the aim of reorganizing it into an organization where local residents can cooperate and collaborate across generations, and where regional resources can be consolidated and utilized to promote growth. To make a long story short, the Yoshijima district is considering whether ICT can be used to solve regional issues, given that the declining birthrate, aging population, and manpower shortages will become even more serious in the future.

I believe that neighborhood relationships are still more active in the Yoshijima district than in urban areas, but even so, they have decreased compared to before, and mutual aid among neighbors has also declined. Therefore, what we are currently considering is a matching system for mutual aid that utilizes ICT. For now, it focuses on the elderly, but we are planning to create a mechanism to match people who need a little help with daily life—such as taking out the trash, accompanying them to hospital visits, shopping, or shoveling snow—with people who are willing to help. The compensation for those who help would be covered by a local currency or point system, which can be used when they or their families need help themselves. By digitizing these mechanisms, we can also expect that people working in urban areas who consider the Yoshijima district their hometown will find it easier to participate in local activities. However, upon investigation, there are several municipalities considering similar systems, and many seem to be struggling due to various factors. Traditional mutual aid among neighbors has been built on face-to-face relationships of trust, and it is said that the key motivator is "empathy," such as thinking "that looks difficult" or "I've had the same experience." To what extent can "empathy" regarding elderly support be triggered in an online community where there is no daily interaction? There still seem to be points that need to be considered.