Elderly People on Social Media

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Statics of elderly people (over 70) using digital media

Below are statics of elderly people using digital media.

Country-Specific Data (Selected EU Nations)


Country            65-74 y.o. Using Internet        75+ y.o. Using Internet

Sweden            89%                                                  52%

Germany          72%                                                   33%

France              68%                                                   25%

Italy                  42%                                                  12%

Romania          18%                                                   5%

(Source: Eurostat, 2023; DESI 2023)

 

Generally speaking, seniors are outside the community if the community tends to connect with each other frequently via social media. Especially during special occasions like Covid-19.During COVID-19, offline seniors experienced heightened loneliness due to reliance on digital tools for socializing (Seifert et al., 2021).

 

Services are offered online 

A lot of services are now increasingly transitioning to digital platforms. For example, banking, healthcare, government, and transportation. They are accessible to target group, however, with obvious barriers.  For example, elderly people can also use digital device to access their online bank account .   But psychologically barrier is ,most of them have fears to the scams .  And there are also physical barriers like small text and unclear icons.

 

Attitude towards social media

The elderly person I interviewed, had mixed feelings towards social media.

Curiosity: "I’d love to video-call my grandkids, but I’m afraid I’ll press the wrong button and disconnect."

Frustration: "Why do banks keep closing branches? I can’t trust online banking—what if I send money to the wrong person?"

Resignation: "Everything’s online now. I guess I have to learn, but it feels overwhelming."

Fear of risks: Scams, privacy breaches, and accidental purchases ("I heard about someone losing their savings to a fake email!").

Anxiety about "breaking" devices or losing data.

 

 

Comments

  1. kiranApril 8, 2025 at 9:35 AM

    Very compact and to the point thoughts.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Maneesha ThathsaraniApril 27, 2025 at 4:01 PM

    This post gives lot of important details regarding social media usage.

    ReplyDelete

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