ABSTRACT
While the majority of older adults are now active online, they are often perceived as passive consumers of online information rather than active creators of content. As a counter to this view, we examine the practices of older adult bloggers (N=20) through in-depth interviews. We study this group of older adults as a unique case of content creation and sharing. We find that the practice of creating and sharing through blogging meets several important psychological and social needs for older adults. Specifically, blogging supports the development of identity in older adulthood; fosters self-expression that supports older adults' values; provides meaningful engagement during retirement; and enables a sense of community and social interaction that is important for wellbeing in late-life. We argue for a focus on designing for late-life development and detail opportunities for online systems to better support the dynamic experience of growing older through online content creation and sharing.
Supplemental Material
- Robin N. Brewer and Jasmine Jones. 2015. Pinteresce: Exploring Reminiscence as an Incentive to Digital Reciprocity for Older Adults. Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference Companion on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing CSCW'15 Companion, ACM Press, 243-246. http://doi.org/10.1145/2685553.2699017 Google ScholarDigital Library
- A.J. Bernheim Brush, Kori M Inkpen, and Kimberly Tee. 2008. SPARCS: exploring sharing suggestions to enhance family connectedness. Proceedings of the ACM 2008 conference on Computer supported cooperative work CSCW '08, ACM Press, 629. http://doi.org/10.1145/1460563.1460661 Google ScholarDigital Library
- John M. Carroll, Gregorio Convertino, Umer Farooq, and Mary Beth Rosson. 2012. The firekeepers: Aging considered as a resource. Universal Access in the Information Society 11, 1, 7-15. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-011-0229--9 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Laura L. Carstensen and Susan Turk Charles. 1998. Emotion in the Second Half of Life. Current Directions in Psychological Science 7, 144-149. http://doi.org/10.1111/1467--8721.ep10836825Google ScholarCross Ref
- K Charmaz. 2006. Constructing grounded theory: a practical guide through qualitative analysis. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2007.11.003Google Scholar
- Gina Masullo Chen. 2012. Why do women write personal blogs? Satisfying needs for self-disclosure and affiliation tell part of the story. Computers in Human Behavior 28, 1, 171-180. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2011.08.024 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Deborah S. Chung and Sujin Kim. Blogging activity among cancer patients and their companions: Uses, gratifications, and predictors of outcomes. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 59, 2. http://doi.org/10.1002/asi.v59:2 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Gene D Cohen. 2006. Research on Creativity and Aging?: The Positive Impact of the Arts on Health and Illness. Generations 30, 1, 7-15.Google Scholar
- Graeme W Coleman, Lorna Gibson, Vicki L Hanson, Ania Bobrowicz, and Alison McKay. 2010. Engaging the disengaged. Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems 2010, ACM Press, 175-178. http://doi.org/10.1145/1858171.1858202 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Raymundo Cornejo, Jesús Favela, and Mónica Tentori. 2010. Ambient displays for integrating older adults into social networking sites. Collaboration and Technology, 321-336. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978--3--64215714--1_24 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Raymundo Cornejo, Mónica Tentori, and Jesús Favela. 2013. Enriching in-person encounters through social media: A study on family connectedness for the elderly. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 71, 9. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2013.04.001 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Erin York Cornwell and Linda J Waite. 2009. Social Disconnectedness, Perceived Isolation, and Health among Older Adults. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 50, 1, 31-48. http://doi.org/10.1177/002214650905000103Google ScholarCross Ref
- Shelia R Cotten, George Ford, Sherry Ford, and Timothy M Hale. 2012. Internet use and depression among older adults. Computers in Human Behavior 28, 2, 496-499. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2011.10.021 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Masashi Crete-Nishihata, Ronald M Baecker, Michael Massimi, et al. 2012. Reconstructing the past: Personal memory technologies are not just personal and not just for memory. Human-Computer Interaction 27, May, 92-123. http://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2012.656062Google Scholar
- Jessica M. David, Alison Benjamin, Ronald M. Baecker, Diane Gromala, and Jeremy Birnholtz. 2011. Living with pain, staying in touch: exploring the communication needs of older adults with chronic pain. in Proc. CHI EA '11, 1219-1224. http://doi.org/10.1145/1979742.1979751 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Maeve Duggan, Nicole B. Ellison, Cliff Lampe, Amanda Lenhart, and Mary Madden. 2014. Social Media Update 2014. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/social-mediaupdate-2014/Google Scholar
- Maeve Duggan and Andrew Perrin. 2015. Americans' Internet Access: 2000--2015. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/06/26/americansinternet-access-2000--2015/Google Scholar
- Maeve Duggan. 2015. Mobile Messaging and Social Media 2015. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/08/19/mobilemessaging-and-social-media-2015/Google Scholar
- Aaron M. Eakman, Mike E. Carlson, and Florence A. Clark. 2010. The Meaningful Activity Participation Assessment: A Measure of Engagement in Personally Valued Activities. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development 70, 4, 299-317. http://doi.org/10.2190/AG.70.4.bGoogle ScholarCross Ref
- Kathrin M. Gerling, Regan L. Mandryk, Matthew Miller, Michael R. Kalyn, Max Birk, and Jan D. Smeddinck. 2015. Designing Wheelchair-Based Movement Games. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing 6, 2, 1-23. http://doi.org/10.1145/2724729 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lorna Gibson, Wendy Moncur, Paula Forbes, John Arnott, Christopher Martin, and Amritpal S Bhachu. 2010. Designing Social Networking Sites for Older Adults. BCS '10 Proceedings of the 24th BCS Interaction Specialist Group Conference, BCS, 186- 194. Retrieved from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2146303.2146331 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Erving Goffman. 1982. The presentation of self in everyday life. In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. 1-10.Google Scholar
- Rebecca Gulotta, William Odom, Haakon Faste, and Jodi Forlizzi. 2014. Legacy in the age of the internet: reflections on how interactive systems shape how we are remembered. Proceedings of the 2014 conference on Designing interactive systems DIS '14, ACM Press, 975-984. http://doi.org/10.1145/2598510.2598579 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Keith N Hampton, Lauren Sessions Goulet, Lee Rainie, and Kristen Purcell. 2011. Social networking sites and our lives. Pew Internet American Life Project 47, 9, 85. Retrieved from http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Technology-andsocial-networks.aspxGoogle Scholar
- Dave Harley and Geraldine Fitzpatrick. 2008. YouTube and intergenerational communication: the case of Geriatric1927. Universal Access in the Information Society 8, 1, 5-20. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-008-0127-y Google ScholarDigital Library
- Alexis Hope, Ted Schwaba, and Anne Marie Piper. 2014. Understanding digital and material social communications for older adults. Proceedings of the 32nd annual ACM conference on Human factors in computing systems, ACM Press, 3903-3912. http://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557133 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Azmina Karimi and Carman Neustaedter. 2012. From high connectivity to social isolation: communication practices of older adults in the digital age. Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work Companion. Retrieved from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2141559 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Verne C. Kopytoff. 2011. Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter. The NY Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/technology/intern et/21blog.htmlGoogle Scholar
- Vilma Lehtinen, J Nasanen, and Risto Sarvas. 2009. "A little silly and empty-headed": older adults' understandings of social networking sites. BCS-HCI, British Computer Society, 45-54. Retrieved from http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1671011.167101 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Amanda Lenhart, Deborah Fallows, and John Horrigan. 2004. Content Creation Online. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2004/02/29/contentcreation-online-2/Google Scholar
- Amanda Lenhart and Susannah Fox. 2006. Bloggers: A portrait of the internet's new storytellers. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2006/07/19/bloggers/Google Scholar
- Amanda Lenhart. 2015. Teens, Social Media & Technology Overview 2015. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/09/teens-socialmedia-technology-2015/Google Scholar
- Siân E Lindley, Richard Harper, and Abigail Sellen. 2008. Designing for Elders': Exploring the Complexity of Relationships in Later Life. BCS-HCi, 77-86. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Siân E Lindley, Richard Harper, and Abigail Sellen. 2009. Desiring to be in touch in a changing communications landscape. Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Human factors in computing systems CHI 09, ACM Press, 1693. http://doi.org/10.1145/1518701.1518962 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Siân E. Lindley. 2011. Shades of lightweight: supporting cross-generational communication through home messaging. Universal Access in the Information Society 11, 1, 31-43. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10209011-0231--2 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Siân Lindley and Jayne Wallace. 2015. Placing in Age. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 22, 4, 1-39. http://doi.org/10.1145/2755562 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Stephen Lindsay, Katie Brittain, Daniel Jackson, Cassim Ladha, Karim Ladha, and Patrick Olivier. 2012. Empathy, participatory design and people with dementia. Proceedings of the 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI '12, ACM Press, 521. http://doi.org/10.1145/2207676.2207749 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mary Madden. 2010. Older Adults and Social Media. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2010/08/27/older-adultsand-social-media/Google Scholar
- Aqueasha Martin-Hammond, Abdullah Ali, Catherine Hornback, and Amy K. Hurst. 2015. Understanding design considerations for adaptive user interfaces for accessible pointing with older and younger adults. Proceedings of the 12th Web for All Conference on W4A '15, ACM Press, 1-10. http://doi.org/10.1145/2745555.2746645 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Alice E. Marwick and Danah Boyd. 2011. I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society 13, 1, 114-133. http://doi.org/10.1177/1461444810365313Google ScholarCross Ref
- Susan H. McFadden and Anne D. Basting. 2010. Healthy Aging Persons and Their Brains: Promoting Resilience Through Creative Engagement. Clinics in Geriatric Medicine 26, 149-161. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.cger.2009.11.004Google ScholarCross Ref
- Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and Matthew E. Brashears. 2006. Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades. American Sociological Review 71, 3, 353-375. http://doi.org/10.1177/000312240807300610Google ScholarCross Ref
- Robinson Meyer. 2015. What Blogging Has Become. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/0 2/what-blogging-has-become/386201/Google Scholar
- Alex Mihailidis, Scott Blunsden, Jennifer Boger, et al. 2010. Towards the development of a technology for art therapy and dementia: Definition of needs and design constraints. The Arts in Psychotherapy 37, 4, 293-300. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2010.05.004Google ScholarCross Ref
- Luca Morganti, Giuseppe Riva, Silvio Bonfiglio, and Andrea Gaggioli. 2013. Building collective memories on the web: the Nostalgia Bits project. International Journal of Web Based Communities 9, 1, 83-104. http://doi.org/10.1504/IJWBC.2013.051373 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bonnie A Nardi, Diane J Schiano, Michelle Gumbrecht, and Luke Swartz. 2004. Why we blog. Communications of the ACM 47, 12, 41. http://doi.org/10.1145/1035134.1035163 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bonnie A. Nardi, Diane J. Schiano, and Michelle Gumbrecht. 2004. Blogging as social activity, or, would you let 900 million people read your diary? Proceedings of the 2004 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work CSCW '04, ACM Press, 222. http://doi.org/10.1145/1031607.1031643 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Chris Norval, John L. Arnott, and Vicki L Hanson. 2014. What's on your mind?: investigating recommendations for inclusive social networking and older adults. Proceedings of the 32nd annual ACM conference on Human factors in computing systems CHI '14, ACM Press, 3923-3932. http://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2556992 Google ScholarDigital Library
- William Odom, Richard Banks, David Kirk, Richard Harper, Siân Lindley, and Abigail Sellen. 2012. Technology Heirlooms?: Considerations for Passing Down and Inheriting Digital Materials. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, 337-346. http://doi.org/10.1145/2207676.2207723 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Anne-Marie Oostveen. 2011. The internet as an empowering technology for stigmatized groups: a case study of weight loss bloggers. Proceeding BCS-HCI '11 Proceedings of the 25th BCS Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 114-119. Retrieved from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2305316.2305337 Google ScholarDigital Library
- John W Osborne. 2012. Psychological effects of the transition to retirement. Canadian Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy 46, 45-58. http://doi.org/10.1080/13642537.2012.734472Google Scholar
- S Tejaswi Peesapati, Victoria Schwanda, Johnathon Schultz, Matt Lepage, So-yae Jeong, and Dan Cosley. 2010. Pensieve: Supporting Everyday Reminiscence. Proceedings of the 28th international conference on Human factors in computing systems CHI '10, ACM Press, 2027. http://doi.org/10.1145/1753326.1753635 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Anne Marie Piper, Nadir Weibel, and James D. Hollan. 2010. Introducing multimodal paper-digital interfaces for speech-language therapy. Proceedings of the 12th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility - ASSETS '10, 203. http://doi.org/10.1145/1878803.1878840 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Yvonne Rogers, Jeni Paay, and Margot Brereton. 2014. Never Too Old: Engaging Retired People Inventing the Future with MaKey MaKey. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI '14, 3913-3922. http://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557184 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Carol D. Ryff. 1995. Psychological Well-Being in Adult Life. Current Directions in Psychological Science 4, 99-104. http://doi.org/10.1111/14678721.ep10772395Google ScholarCross Ref
- Na'ama Shapira, Azy Barak, and Iddo Gal. 2007. Promoting older adults' well-being through Internet training and use. Aging & mental health 11, 5, 477- 484. http://doi.org/10.1080/13607860601086546Google Scholar
- Aaron Smith. 2011. Why Americans use social media. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2011/11/15/whyamericans-use-social-media/Google Scholar
- Hanna van Solinge and Kène Henkens. 2008. Adjustment to and satisfaction with retirement: Two of a kind? Psychology and Aging 23, 2, 422-434. http://doi.org/10.1037/0882--7974.23.2.422Google ScholarCross Ref
- Molly M. Stevens, Gregory D. Abowd, Khai N. Truong, and Florian Vollmer. 2003. Getting into the Living Memory Box: Family archives & holistic design. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 7, 3--4, 210-216. http://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-003-0220--4 Google ScholarDigital Library
- S Shyam Sundar and Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch. 2011. Retirees on Facebook: can online social networking enhance their health and wellness? CHI'11 Extended, 2287-2292. http://doi.org/10.1145/1979742.1979931 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ursina Teuscher. 2010. Change and persistence of personal identities after the transition to retirement. International journal of aging & human development 70, 1, 89-106. http://doi.org/10.2190/AG.70.1.dGoogle Scholar
- Elizabeth Thiry, Siân Lindley, Richard Banks, and Tim Regan. 2013. Authoring personal histories: Exploring the timeline as a framework for meaning making. Proceedings of the 2013 SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems (CHI 2013), 1619-1628. http://doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2466215 Google ScholarDigital Library
- John Vines, Gary Pritchard, Peter Wright, Patrick Olivier, and Katie Brittain. 2015. An Age-Old Problem: Examining the Discourses of Ageing in HCI and Strategies for Future Research. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 22, 1, 1-27. http://doi.org/10.1145/2696867 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Kerryellen G. Vroman, Sajay Arthanat, and Catherine Lysack. 2015. "Who over 65 is online?" Older adults' dispositions toward information communication technology. Computers in Human Behavior 43, 156- 166. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.10.018Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jenny Waycott, Frank Vetere, Sonja Pedell, et al. 2013. Older adults as digital content producers. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI '13, ACM Press, 39. http://doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2470662 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Susan Wendell. 1996. The rejected body : feminist philosophical reflections on disability. In Routledge. 57-68.Google Scholar
- Bo Xie, Ivan Watkins, Jen Golbeck, and Man Huang. 2012. Understanding and Changing Older Adults' Perceptions and Learning of Social Media. Educational Gerontology 38, September 2014, 282-296. http://doi.org/10.1080/03601277.2010.544580Google ScholarCross Ref
Index Terms
- "Tell It Like It Really Is": A Case of Online Content Creation and Sharing Among Older Adult Bloggers
Recommendations
Going Gray, Failure to Hire, and the Ick Factor: Analyzing How Older Bloggers Talk about Ageism
CSCW '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social ComputingAgeism is a pervasive, and often invisible, form of discrimination. Though it can affect people of all ages, older adults in particular face age-related stereotypes and bias in their everyday lives. In this paper, we describe the ways in which older ...
“It’s Kind of Like Code-Switching”: Black Older Adults’ Experiences with a Voice Assistant for Health Information Seeking
CHI '22: Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsBlack older adults from lower socioeconomic environments are often neglected in health technology interventions. Voice assistants have a potential to make healthcare more accessible to older adults, yet, little is known about their experiences with this ...
Negotiating stereotypes of older adults through avatars
OzCHI '17: Proceedings of the 29th Australian Conference on Computer-Human InteractionVirtual Avatars can bring opportunities for enjoyment, social participation and exploration of identities. However, the configuration of avatar creation software may marginalise some groups of users due to them reinforcing social stereotypes that ...
Comments