Social media as enabler for ICT inclusion to achieve active ageing

• Main Author: Chan, Celeste J.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2018
• Subjects: Older people > Social networks; Aging; Social media; Human information processing in older people; OS and Networks
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/549
• Institution: De La Salle University

The social media realm is an exclusive virtual domain of the younger generation. However, this popularity of social technology can enable the rapidly growing elderly sector to effectively use ICT, thus, promoting active ageing. Various research inquiries on the use of social media among elderly people involved different approaches, methodologies, and theoretical underpinnings and examined factors related to the observed technological phenomenon. It is within this framework that this study investigated the elderly sector's use of social media with focus on the personal and environmental factors and influences. Simply put, this research aimed to present and describe a more vivid and a better picture of the Filipino elders using varied forms of social media.Employing the tenets of social cognitive and social capital theories, this research built an integrative model which explains the involvement and interaction of factors in the elderly use of social media and identified the effects of these processes towards the promotion of active ageing – the enhancement of the quality of life of older people in health, participation, and security. Moreover, it also assessed the use of social media among the elders through the stages of access to digital technology (e-inclusion). Both the quantitative and qualitative approaches were used by utilizing the sequential time orientation and nested relationship methods in the data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Through the interactions of factors of SCT in the elderly use of social media, results revealed that social capital bonding and inclusive participation of the elderly on social media promotes active ageing. On the other hand, social media self-efficacy and social capital bridging are the identified effects which can be acquired by a social media user but not significant to active ageing.