Does Social Media Help Old People Feel Less Lonely?

Remember when people speculated that social media would produce a population of isolates, working alone in a room, disconnected from the rest of humanity? And if lonely older people took up social media, they would become even more lonely and depressed? Well, speculate no more—older adults, just like the rest of humanity, have climbed aboard the social media band wagon, and the results are overwhelmingly positive. In fact, older people, once they try Skype, Facebook or other electronic platforms, become enthusiasts, accounting for a substantial jump in use in just ten years.

We knew this was happening. People in our age group happily discuss their internet connections, and few among our acquaintances say they don’t participate. But if you had any doubts about how social media has drawn older people in its web, here is the latest research from PEW:

-There has been a nearly tenfold jump in the use of social media by older people in the past decade.

-In 2005, 2% of seniors used social media, compared with 35% today.

-Usage among those 65 and older has more than tripled since 2010, when only 11% used social media.

Anita Kamiel, reporting for the Huffington post, welcomes the use of social media among elders, saying:

“Many might think that social media is the exclusive domain of the younger generation. However, many older adults have enthusiastically adopted it to keep up with the times as well as their old acquaintances and younger family members. Grandparents are becoming proficient in alien things like Skype and Facebook and liking it. It has become a healthy emotional outlet and word of its benefits has spread like wildfire among the elderly. “

This is good news for all of us, and is supported by institutions like UC San Diego Center for Healthy Aging, which studies depression among older people, and reports the alarming statistic that loneliness in older adults varies from 20-40%, and usually hovers around 30%.

The Center admits that social media may be helpful in alleviating this. However, in an interview with Gary Robbins of the San Diego Union Tribune, Dilip Jeste, director of the Center, is cautious about the benefits of social media, stating:

“I have not found any randomized controlled trials of cellphone or social media use as interventions for self-perceived loneliness in older people, but there is some evidence (not conclusive, by any means) that social media users are more satisfied with their current social roles and endorse more social satisfaction than non-social media users.”

The concern about depression and loneliness is not confined to North America. In the UK, a massive study on loneliness has been underway for some years, with the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing concluding that being older is a strong predictor of loneliness, and that people aged over 80 are more than twice as likely to suffer severe loneliness when compared to younger age groups. Most alarming is their calculation that loneliness increases the likelihood of mortality by 26% in older people.

And in Australia, a recent Social Isolation and Loneliness Report, conducted by Galaxy Research says that Older Australians who use the internet daily are less likely to experience feelings of loneliness than those who peruse the web less often. Of all survey participants, 70 per cent said social media makes them feel less lonely.

It’s a well known fact that you can be surrounded by people, and yet feel lonely. Conversely, you can be alone, but when connected to meaningful activities on social media, feelings of isolation and loneliness diminish somewhat. Recently, this reality has caught the interest of researchers like Shiela Cotton, a sociologist at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, who has found that older adults who were active on the internet experienced a 30% decrease of depressive symptoms.

The Internet, she says, (and social networking, more specifically) has become a way for aging adults to connect to their loved ones and maintain their communities and relationships in ways more powerful than anything they ever imagined.

I’ll end with Kate Finn Ph.D., who, in her recent study Social Media Use by Older Adults includes an array of social media instruments in her research: e-mail, video chat, instant messaging, blogging, photo and video sharing, webcasts, and podcasts.  So if you still need convincing that social media is beneficial in alleviating the pain of isolation among older adults, her words may sway you:

“Over the past decade, social media has experienced rampant and ever-widening adoption. The group that has seen the greatest increase in adoption rates is that of older adults, defined here as 65+. By virtue of its relative immediacy and dynamism, social media can improve some people’s quality of life by relieving their isolation, and exposing them to new sources for social contact, information, and transactions.”

Let’s face it, some of us have been around since the telephone became an everyday wonder. Social media, with its promise of immediate connection to thousands of people, is to us, an over-the-top miracle!