Sunday, August 22, 2010

LIB 203 Social Media and Older Adults

The brief article “AARP Overhauls Website as New Research Finds Social Networking Continues to Rise Among Boomers and 50+ Americans.” (June 2010) describes the recent changes to the AARP website. These changes are designed to create an interactive online community for AARO.org users. In conjunction with the website update AARP is expanding its online content delivery to e-readers, smart phones and mobile phones. The article also highlights research findings from AARP. These finding show that among Americas 50+ social networking is growing and Facebook is the most popular social networking site.

In the article “The Ongoing Web Revolutions” Michael Stephens (2007) suggests that participation in Web 2.0 social media like facebook, flickr and youtube is built on trust. The AARP research findings that a majority of 50+ Americans have heard about social media from family members, children and grandchild supports Stephens proposed link between Web 2.0 participation and trust. Working with older adults I’ve found many rely heavily on recommendations from family members with regards to computers and the internet. For example, my son recently got married out of state. For health reason his grandmother could not travel to the wedding. We upload the wedding video to youtube and she was able to see the wedding before the cake was cut! She then participated in the Web 2.0 by sharing that youtube link via email with her brothers and sister.

AARP Overhauls Website as New Research Finds Social Networking Continues to Rise Among Boomers and 50+ Americans. (2010, June 7). PR Newswire. Retrieved from http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aarp-overhauls-website-as-new-research-finds-social-networking-continues-to-rise-among-boomers-and-50-americans-95762894.html

Update 8/27/10:
Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project data supports the AARP finding listed above. http://t.co/NjV5reZ

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