Social Media and the Elderly

There is much research which indicates that social media makes it easier to interact with there people, to find people with similar interests, and to keep in touch with those whom one already knows. However, there is nearly just as much research which indicates the opposite that social media serves to disconnect one from one's friends, that it creates social isolation, and that it causes superficial interactions. Adding to the difficulties in reaching a clear conclusion about this matter is the fact that many, if not most of the studies about the effects of social media on friendships and social interactions have been done on the young.

Even for studies about the young, it is not entirely retain if a broader social network encourages adoption of social media, or if adoption of social media encourages a broader social network. Judging from what is known about other differences between older people and young people, it is quite likely that the ways in which they use social media will also significantly differ. Among other things, it is known that older people are usually later adopters of technology than are young people. Other things are known about social media usage regardless Of age. In particular, social media has a very different effect on one's local social networks than it does on those at a regional or national level.

Social Media

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A number of different researchers have found contradictory results about the effects of social media usage on older people. For instance, some studies have found that using Faceable increases weak social ties at the expense of stronger ties, while other studies have found that that does not occur. The studies which found no effect also found a relationship between the quality of in-person friendships and the use of instant messaging on social networking sites.

Additionally, other differences were seen among users of social media. For instance, for those adopters of social networking who had high social irises, their number of friends increased faster than did the number of friends of those who had smaller social circles. Users of social networking sites were also less likely to ask their neighbors for help Social Networking and Mental Health In Older Adults Up to this point, there have not been very many studies of how use of social networking effects the mental and emotional health of older adults.

A number of studies have found that large circles of friends is strongly associated with increased cognitive performance in older adults, while depression is strongly connected to feelings of isolation and loneliness. Because of this, there is a good possibility that using social networking can stave off depression because it can give people a greater number of social contacts. There is also some evidence that the use of social networking can help older adults to improve their cognitive performance and overall quality of life. This is because social networking increases social capital.

Other studies have confirmed this and found that social networking in itself does not have any positive or negative effect on older adults. Rather, the way in which social networking is used plays a strong role in determining what effect it will have n an older person's quality of life - some people use social networking as a way to compensate for otherwise-inadequate networks of friends, while other people use it to actively keep in touch with people they know. Making Social Networking Accessible One of the areas which the above studies have neglected is accessibility.

Older people often suffer from poorer vision and other problems. Many, if not most, social media websites are designed for young and middle-aged adults. These designs are often not conducive to older people gaining as much as possible from their use of these sites. Chaos, Lair and Lie conducted a duty of how social networking can be made more accessible to older people. They found that many of these sites had been designed without older people in mind and thus did not incorporate several design principles that they found to be important.

These principles included using contrasting colors, making sure that interfaces were relatively simple and intuitive, and excluding extraneous information whenever possible. They found, that if these design principles were followed, then it is likely that the satisfaction which elderly people gain from using these sites would increase significantly.

Conclusion

Currently, there is no consensus on how social media affects the elderly. However, there is a lot of data that suggests two possible conclusions. The first possible conclusion is that using social media either has no effect on older adults or a very mild negative effect.

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