I am currently recruiting participants for a research project that investigates how people help or support older adults to use social media accounts. Any help or support you provide to older adults or people with dementia at any age with social media is relevant (for example, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc).
I am interested in speaking to you if you assist an older adult or a person with dementia to use their own social media accounts. If you think this might be you, please contact me at.
You can also help by taking a short survey here:
https://survey.napier.ac.uk/n/smp.aspx
Participants will be asked to keep a diary related to the activities they undertake on behalf of the other person for two weeks, followed by an interview which can be conducted in person or via phone or video call. (Participants do not need to be a carer, but they should play a role in helping with social media accounts.)
If you are interested in taking part in this study, please contact me.
More about this study:
The project is titled “Social media by proxy: Strategies for managing the online profiles of adults with dementia” and is being undertaken with Dr Gemma Webster (PI). The work is funded by a Carnegie Trust Research Incentive Grant.
The work was developed based on Gemma’s previous work with people with dementia, carers, and dementia support organisations and my own PhD work on social media use. The combination of these research areas is strengthened by the fact that social media use by older adults is at an all-time high and the increase in people with dementia*. This brings the ongoing discussions of social media use in today’s society to a growing population of users.
The general goal of this research is to identify how people manage the social media accounts of older adults and people with dementia “by proxy”. This includes:
- How “proxies” manage social media accounts for older adults or people with dementia in their care;
- How and if people with dementia engage with their social media accounts (with or without support); and
- What kind of support (if any) “proxies” have for managing these social media accounts.
For more information about this research, or to note interest in participating, please contact me.
Note: This project has been given ethical approval by Edinburgh Napier University.
*UK statistics: Nearly half (48%) of Internet users aged 65-74 and 41% aged 75+ maintain social media accounts. Further, there are currently 850,000 people with dementia in the UK with a predicted rise to 1 million+ by 2025.