# Voice Assistant Application for Avoiding Sedentarism in Elderly People Based on IoT Technologies
## 2 Background
### Digital Divide  
The digital divide is a term that has affected society almost since the beginning of the digital age. All scientific articles define it similarly [12; 13; 14] as a gap between people who do and do not have access to forms of information and communication technologies. Nevertheless, for some authors [15; 16] the digital divide is categorized into several levels. The first-level digital divide defines a binary status, to have (or not) Internet access; the second-level digital divide is related to Internet skills and use; the third-level digital divide defines tangible outcomes of the Internet use.  
The digital divide is related to and caused by several factors. These factors are usually linked [17; 18]. The most important aspects are mentioned below:  
* Economic gap: It is related to the difference in the incomes of the population. At the beginning of the Internet, digital devices were extremely expensive and not all citizens were able to afford those kinds of devices. Those first years could have been the cause for the digital divide in some sectors of society. However, the economic gap is still a problem and the cause of the digital divide in many countries.
* Racial gap: The structural barriers and discrimination that different races suffer could be a cause of the digital divide that exists between them.
* Disability gap: Many homes with a disability member in the family have problems accessing the Internet since many of these people need special equipment, which is expensive and, in some cases, hard to find it. Furthermore, those people who do not have access to these special types of equipment need the help of another person to access the Internet.
* Gender gap: Technology in the engineered world is mainly populated by men. There is a huge difference in the number of women vs. men in technical careers. Additionally, the traditional education patterns guide more women to nontechnical fields. These circumstances along with some policies in some countries lead to a digital divide.
* LGBT gap: This community usually suffers similar consequences as already explained in racial and gender gaps. The digital divide caused by the LGBT gap can be huge especially in underdeveloped countries.
* Age gap: Many elderly people have problems accessing the Internet and developing Internet skills. Many of them are considered digital immigrants since they were not influenced by digital devices and the digital age during their young years. Even so, some of them have developed digital skills and can do some basic searches on the Internet. Nonetheless, most elderly people do not have these abilities; this may be due to security concerns, motivation, memory loss, cost, lack of support, among others. Furthermore, some of them live in areas with none or poor quality of Internet network.  
This last gap is the most important one for the present study since we are proposing a new system to avoid sedentarism in elderly people. The proposed system makes use of Internet services and devices connected to the Internet. As a result, our system has to avoid and deal with the main problems that elderly people have when they are trying to establish a connection with an Internet device.  
Because of that, our system must use a user interface in which elderly people do not need a huge training process and something that they are also used to. Hence, we have selected monitoring smart bracelets and virtual voice assistants to monitor and communicate with elderly people.