Senior citizens in online communities
•
1 like•516 views
Workshop presentation when with experts in fields of age, gerontology, IT, caring and research we discussed how we'd tackle researching motivations, advantages, obstacles & risks to senior citizens participating in online communities Scol starting research-2012-09-15 (ss)
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Viewers also liked
Viewers also liked (7)
Similar to Senior citizens in online communities
Similar to Senior citizens in online communities (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Senior citizens in online communities
- 1. Senior citizens’ use of online communities Liz Hartnett Kathryn Dunn Shailey Minocha Sept 2012 1
- 2. This presentation focuses on The need for the research Existing research into online communities Existing research of older adults 2
- 3. Why are we researching this? We need to adapt online resources for the interests and abilities of older people. 3 3
- 4. What is the previous work on older peoples’ use of online communities? • What are online communities? • What do we know about older peoples’ use of online communities? 4 4
- 5. What is an online community? An online or virtual community is a social network of individuals who interact through specific social media, .. in order to pursue mutual interests or goals.” 5 5
- 6. Research of online communities – what are they? Classifying online communities might help researchers form research questions. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue1/porter_figure01.gif 6 6
- 7. Online communities – why join? • For friendship • To influence • To gain support • To access information • To spread ideas • To work together to develop something • To play together 7 7
- 8. The most popular online tool in 2003 was the discussion forum. Should we examine the impact of discussion forums on emotional support and knowledge sharing? 8 8
- 9. XKCD cartoon http://xkcd.com/802/ 9
- 10. What online problems might older adults face? • Barriers • Interface design • Content 10 10
- 11. Many web sites are not suitable for older adults but can be adapted What are the barriers and how do we overcome them? •“I used to play a game, Farmville, but it was taking far too much time.” •“I stopped using Skype because I found reception was terrible.” •“It’s far too crowded a screen, making it difficult to find what you want.” 11 11
- 12. Older people aren’t Luddites What interface designs are age-proof? 12 12
- 13. What content do older people want? • “Occasionally, I look at one of the German magazines, Stern.” • “It’s almost now becoming essential, business- wise, to be able to email.” To order Kindle files, update meals on wheels, church newsletters attached to emails. • “I do a lot of internet banking.” 13 13
- 14. What do we mean by older adults? • Gender • Age categories 14 14
- 15. Male seniors were more likely than females to use the internet The Chinese have considered gender differences – should we? 15 15
- 16. Older adults have been categorised into age groups Is there an age range in online communities? What is a sensible age range to use? 16 16
- 17. In summary, we propose to investigate • senior citizens’ motivations for participating in communities • advantages they experience • the obstacles that they encounter • the risks they face Your advice and questions? 17
Editor's Notes
- Introduction : Good morning, I’m Liz Hartnett. Welcome and thank you for coming today. Welcome to our OU people and a special welcome to our guests, we’re investigating older adults’ use of online communities. Picture from guardian.co.uk 19/09/12
- I’m going present our current perceptions and ask for your help on how we go about researching older people and their use of online communities because you have the experience and understanding of the population we wish to research. The talk will take about 8-10 minutes with 3-5 minutes for questions after.
- There are more people over sixty in the population than under 16 (Hollinworth, 2011). From these charts, you can see that 11.4% of the world population is over 60 and Age UK predict this to rise to 22% by 2050 (Age UK, 2012). Those numbers imply we need to shift to more of an emphasis on online resources for older people and the consequent need to adapt to their interests and abilities. 19/09/12
- We want to look at what online communities already exist and what use older people are already making of them. In this presentation, I will say something of the existing categories of online communities, typologies, reasons for joining, and of what we know of research on older people’s use of electronic resources, including categorisation by age. 19/09/12
- A community is “ a group of individuals sharing common interests or purposes ” {Dunning , 2009 #2375}. There are various definitions but an online community seems to be a community enabled by technology so “is a social network of individuals who interact through specific social media , .. in order to pursue mutual interests or goals.” Communities could be specifically for the elderly, or focus on the interests. These icons represent examples: Ning offers web sites that groups can set up for their own communities: street dancing, tae kwon do, football, Radiohead. Gransnet is specially for grandmothers, some of whom could be quite young, and flickr is to share photos. We are interested to know about senior citizens interactions with others on the Web rather than focussing on online communities that have been specifically set up for the aged such as by Saga or by Age UK or Gransnet.com, etc. 19/09/12
- Researchers of online communities have categorised them Here’re two types (Porter 2004) – one where the members start the community, and the other where the organisation starts it. This chart shows subcategories of relationships. Social communities foster personal relationships, often leisure activities, but you could have professional relationships with expert knowledge sharing and learning. Other categories of online communities include discussion (P2P, topic oriented, CoPs and indirect discussion communities like you get on Amazon), task /goal oriented like you get through online learning, and virtual worlds - do senior citizens indulge in games. (Äkkinen, 2005)? Virtual communities have five attributes: " (1) Purpose, (2) Place, (3) Platform, (4) Population Interaction Structure, and (5) Profit Model ," 19/09/12
- People join communities because they benefit from opportunities for friendship, and to influence others, from social support and access to information, they can disseminate their ideas more quickly, support each other in collective action, and can work together, perhaps to develop something, or to play games. 19/09/12
- Online tools include search engines and browsers such as Yahoo & Google, email, forum/ discussion board, message board/ bulletin board, chat-rooms, newsletters. In 2003, the most popular online tool was the discussion forum {Lee , 2003 #2339}. In 2003, Twitter did not exist, so wouldn't be included. It does now exist and is used e.g. With the tag #wisetips {Hodgkin, 2012 #2185}. Lee et al identify from previous literature possible stages of growth of discussion forums: basic understanding, technology development, and understanding of the functions, implementations and assessments, institutionalisation. They suggested that future research examine the impact of discussion forums on emotional support and knowledge sharing. 19/09/12
- These are some of the online communities that the xkcd cartoonist identified in 2010: Twitter, Skype, forums, a subset of Facebook - Farmville. Farmville is apparently the second biggest browser-based social-networking-centred farming game in the world. 19/09/12
- Now I’ll move onto to considering the possible problems for older adults on line. 19/09/12
- Barriers : Many web sites are not suitable for older adults but can be adapted to a particular technology model, and are then acceptable to older users {Tseng, 2012 #2271}. I have already spoken to a few older users of computers and here are some of the barriers they mentioned. The first quote is from an 89 year old man who wants to use Amazon to download files for his Kindle. The screen is too crowded for him. The second and third quote are from a 69 year-old, ostensibly retired but running a small franchised home-based business. Picture from Microsoft Word clip art.
- Interface design : older people need interface design that is age-proof Hollinworth {, 2011 #2284} looks at interface design for older users. The future challenge will be to design for evolving generations - each generation will come with age-related declines but with different attitudes too and thus older adults will always lag the young in taking up technology. Hollinworth argues that older people aren't Luddites and future technologies must be age-proof. Picture from http://www.flickr.com/photos/rgreenlive/3623652923/
- Moving on again, to contemplating Content : what content do people want? Gardening? Photography? Family? To order meals on wheels. To order a Kindle file. These quotes are from the 89 year old who looks at foreign language sites for pure interest. Whilst he sees the technology as essential for his life he is unaware of what online communities are, let alone what their benefits might be.
- Before we start our research, we need to decide who our target population is. 19/09/12
- Does gender matter? The Chinese have considered gender differences {Pan, 2010} found that male seniors were more likely than females to use the internet but no difference in what they wanted to use it for – should we?
- Age range is a big question for us. Older adults have been categorised into age groups: being younger seniors (40-early 50s) {Pan, 2010} or 55 plus {Lam, 2006}. The United Nations defines older adults in developing countries as being > 60, but in developed countries as > 65 {Wang, 2011}. We propose looking at an age range of 60-80 but is this too young? We would appreciate your advice on the age range and how to categorise the range. Is there an age range in online communities? What is a sensible age range?
- We are focusing today on these four bullet points, and first need to decide on the age ranges. Picture from http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/sep/20/adopt-a-care-home-internet-older-people Rachel Williams, Tuesday 20 Sept 2011