Most of us have a picture of what older people and young people are like before we ever sit down with them. Older people supposedly can’t handle technology and believe anything, young people supposedly don’t care about anything. Our work with both groups shows that reality is far more complex, and that these labels don’t help. If you want to help someone find their way through information overload, you gain nothing by sorting them by age.
Conversations about information disorder also tend to focus on reaction: how to respond, what to do about it. That matters, but a purely reactive stance keeps us on the defensive. Inspired by colleagues in Finland and the Baltics, we used the forum to approach the topic from the other end. Students, seniors and librarians worked in mixed groups, first designing intergenerational meetings about information, media and AI, then using Futures Literacy to focus on what we want to create rather than only what we defend against. The shared question: how will we learn from each other in the age of AI? Nobody has ready answers, which is a good reason to look for them together.
It seems to have worked, and we now have plenty to build the next prototypes on, starting with pilot meetings in schools and libraries. Thank you to Centrum Elpida and to everyone who joined us.
“What helps most is when participants try fact-checking for themselves and let the game catch them out. It works because they make the mistake in a safe setting, not in real life. The game sparks curiosity. And they don’t just leave with the lesson ‘don’t believe everything,’ but with concrete steps they can use the very next day.” – an educator working with older adults, Transitions practitioner survey 2026