Investigating Methods for Increasing the Adoption of Social Media amongst Carers for the Elderly

摘要

Social Media has become one of the biggest successes on the World Wide Web. The Online Social Network (OSN) Facebook is by far the most popular with over 1 billion users. OSNs have the potential to minimise the effects of social isolation in older people which could alleviate some of the responsibility placed upon older carers. Nonetheless, a number of barriers still exist to the usage of Social Media. This study has investigated how to increase adoption of Social Media usage among older users by providing personalised training to elderly carers relating to how OSNs work and how they could be used in their lives. This paper presents the quantitative and qualitative findings from a training day that observed ten carers being introduced to Social Media. The paper documents the issues that were encountered and discusses how these can be addressed to help aid adoption of Social Media, in the future.