Tell us how you use Facebook and we’ll tell you how old you are , or at least we’ll be able to make an estimate, thanks to a new study published by researchers at the University of North Dakota.
Older adults are drawn to Facebook for photos and updates from family and friends , but tend to resist using Facebook because they are concerned about who can view their content , new research reveals.
Facebook was born to connect people, but it can also be a dangerous tool. The lies of Facebook; Tuesday, March 26 at 10:30 p.m. on Canal Odisea
“The biggest concern of older adults is privacy and not because they reveal too much, but because they think there are too many people out there who could use their information as they please, ” says the co-director of Penn’s Effects Media Research Laboratory. State, S. Shyam Sundar. “Privacy has to do with the degree of control you feel you have over how your information is shared or distributed.”
The researchers interviewed 46 participants who were between 65 and 95 years old. The group included 17 male participants and 29 female participants, all of them with a college degree. All claimed to use a computer on a daily basis.
Participants argued keeping in touch, keeping up with their contact updates, and sharing photos as top reasons for using Facebook. However, the older adults in the study cited privacy, as well as the triviality of some posts, as reasons for staying away from the site.
According to this, Facebook would need to implement clearer privacy control tools to promote its use in older adults. This indicates, on the other hand, that young people are less and less concerned about their privacy and, in general, do not consider it a factor to take into account when using a social network.
However, this does not mean that older adults do not enjoy the Facebook experience. While senior users are concerned about who is looking at their posts , at the same time they enjoy using the site to look at photos and read messages from friends and family, according to the researchers.
The study revealed that young people post more; instead, older people prefer to watch what their contacts are doing.
“I haven’t put anything in in years. I don’t need to say, ‘I’m eating!’ I don’t understand that kind of communication , “one participant told the researchers.
The researchers, reporting their findings in the journal Telematics and Informatics , cautioned Facebook developers to focus on privacy settings to take advantage of the older market.
The researchers suggest that Facebook is helping to serve as a communication bridge between generations and that young people are prompting older family members to join the site. In particular, unlike the youth, most older adults were encouraged by younger family members to join Facebook so that they could communicate.
Keeping older users could be a significant resource to help fuel the growth of Facebook and other social networks.
