A facebook friendship request from your grandmother or a like on instagram from the old lady next door, it is all normal nowadays. We are all used to the fact that ninetysix percent of the young adults actively uses at least one social media platform. But research shows that eight out of ten of the people of sixtyfive and over, are now using social media. Last year their were only three quarters of that certain type of group active users. So this type of group has increased a lot over the year.
The reason why they stayed behind past years is, because they had the feeling that not everybody needed to see every aspect of their lives. But right now they admit that social media is really useful. The main reason for becoming an active users is, staying in contact with family and friends, but elderly also have the feeling that they are more independent.
The programs that are being used the most are Facebook and Google plus. As you can see on the infographics below, there has been a big change over the couple of years. All the social media platforms, that are represented in the picture, grew a lot. The first picture shows the users in 2011 and the second picture shows the users in 2015.
Another point being made in the research is, that elderly also have found the mobile chatprograms, like Whatsapp and Facebook messenger. They are starting to use mobile devices instead of computers. The mobile devices make it easier to connect with the chatprograms and use it. Right now the chatprograms are not as popular as Facebook, but we will also see an increase in the use of these programs the next couple of years.
Elderly are not only becoming more modern and in touch with younger people, they are also more careful when it comes to sharing personal information. Elderly are very aware of the dangers that can occure, when you provide the wrong information on social media.
It might seem a little bit weird to see your grandmothers beach photo’s on instagram and accept your friends grandmothers Facebook request, but it also has a lot of advantages to connect elderly with social media. What do you think about older people on social media platforms?
References
- FrankWatching (2015) De online opmars van de 65-plusser: verstand komt met de jaren http://www.frankwatching.com/archive/2015/10/20/online-opmars-65-plusser-verstand-komt-met-de-jaren-onderzoek/
Interesting post! My grandparents are on Facebook but they are not active users as I don’t get a notification from them too often. I think its really cool that they are on Facebook as they are keeping up with the times.
In general, Facebook could help keep the elderly engaged and thus may become less likely to fall prey to despondency and depression. Like mentioned in the post, it’s the best way to stay in touch with family! Sharing and need for communication does become important with age and through Facebook they could share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences about their world, their home, children, and grand children with friends through videos and photographs. Additionally, with Facebook, there is little need to remember names, email addresses, or telephone numbers. And it offers near real-time access to people at discrete locations around the world.
However, the happiness you get from calling them and hearing their voice is not the same as messaging them on Facebook. Hence, even though I’m happy my grandparents are on Facebook, I would prefer calling them any day!