Features of delayed aging in the post-COVID world. Review of studies

The coronavirus pandemic, the general uncertainty and variability of the post-pandemic world have challenged the already outdated concept of chronological age determination of the elderly. Along with the updating the previous age limits and the isolation of the elderly during the pandemic, the question has arisen how the age of the elderly will generally be determined in the world to come, and what key parameters will be important for this? In this review we consider researchers' viewpoints on the reasons of the possibility of delayed aging in Russia, analyzing the latest publications on social policy, sociology of aging, the role of information technology in the lives of older people and their employment, and using the method of thematic analysis. The key findings of the work show that the older people's individual understanding of their age, reflexivity and participatory social policy, the integration of older people into the sphere of information technology, within which this category of citizens builds their status, and also determines the opportunities for increasing motivation and choosing one or another direction of activity play the main role in the comprehension of the new concept of delayed aging. The review results indicate that at this stage, if the indicated directions are successfully developed, the concept of delayed aging can become one of the new options for understanding age, promote a paradigm shift and a gradual departure from the chronological and medicalized determinants of age, which are still the key ones in the social sciences.