Social Network Sites and Older Generation

摘要

Currently, there is an increase in the number of older generation groups. These demographic changes obviously cause serious social and economic problems. Therefore, the governments all over the world try to find the strategies, which would keep older people active as long as possible, both physically and mentally. One of the ways, which can contribute to this process, is also the use of social media such as social network sites. The purpose of this article is to discuss the use of social network sites (SNS), show their potential benefits of their use by elderly people, as well as indicate some of the constraints preventing their use by this group of people. The findings show that more and more people at the age of 65+ years start to use SNS. The most popular SNS among older individuals aged 65+ years are as follows: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. The main advantages of their use for this group of people include alleviation of loneliness and social isolation; collecting and sharing information, photos, or experience; getting involved in policy making [20]; or improving their state of health. On the contrary, people aged 65+ years have to face some difficulties when using SNS such as technical inaccessibility, inappropriate interface design, a lack of training, or misuse of personal data. Finally, there is an urgent need of the adoption of these SNS to their needs, both technical and content ones in order to enhance their motivation towards the active use of SNS.