Influence of Social Media Use Among Older Adults in Portugal

ABSTRACT

Social media usage has the potential to contribute to improving older adults’ social interactions and well-being. This study focuses on older community-dwelling Portuguese adults (≥65 years old) and compares social media users versus non-users concerning sociodemographic variables in conjunction with loneliness, social isolation, depression, satisfaction with life, and satisfaction with social support. A cross-section study was conducted, comprising 250 participants recruited through non-probability sampling. The main findings show that: 28.8% of the participants use social media, most of them (76.4%) Facebook; users (compared to non-users) were employed with more years of education, fewer children, and a lower average age; no statistically significant differences were found between users and non-users regarding social isolation, perceived social support, satisfaction with social support and satisfaction with life; users (compared to non-users) showed significantly fewer depressive symptoms. The low percentage of social media users among older adults hinders contact through social media among older adults. To enhance the use of social media among older adults probably is better to start by endorsing the interaction with younger family members.

KEYWORDS:

• Community-dwelling
• social support
• social media usage
• social interaction
• older adults

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Author contributions

All authors contributed equally to this study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., within CINTESIS R&D Unit (UIDB/4255/2020 and UIDP/4255/2020) and within the scope of the project RISE (LA/P/0053/2020).