Understanding and Changing Older Adults' Perceptions and Learning of Social Media

Abstract

An exploratory study was conducted to answer the following questions: What are older adults’ perceptions of social media? What educational strategies can facilitate their learning of social media? A thematic map was developed to illustrate changing perceptions from the initial unanimous, strong negative to the more positive but cautious, and to the eventual willingness to actually contribute content. Privacy was the primary concern and key perceptual barrier to adoption. Effective educational strategies were developed to overcome privacy concerns, including (a) introducing the concepts before introducing the functions; (b) responding to privacy concerns; and (c) making social media personally relevant.

Acknowledgments

We thank the older adults, librarians, and graduate students who helped to make this study possible. The Electronic Health Information for Lifelong Learners (eHiLL) research project was funded with Federal funds from the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services under Contract No. NO1-LM-6-3502 with the University of Maryland-Baltimore. The eHiLL-Older Adult Team (OAT) research project is funded by a three-year Faculty Early Career Development Award to Bo Xie from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).