As I said in my previous post. Social media is a powerful tool these days that people can use it for different purposes, from chatting with friends to seeking a job....bla bla bla
However, according to my own observation, a big percentage of elder people have difficulties to approach this kind of new media. Let's take my mom for example. Her age is slightly above 45 and working for a international trading company as a secretary. About 2 years ago, one of its German client, a 20 year old young man, called her to seek for some technical supports. In the end of their conversation, the German client wants to have her Facebook, just in case that the solution she provide couldn't solve the problem and he really doesn't want to make another 30 min international phone call, since it cost so much. Now, here comes the problem. My mother didn't have a Facebook or any sorts of social webpage account at that time. She told her the problem and he answered, "What? Are you kidding me? I just couldn't believe that there are still people on earth who doesn't have a Facebook account!" After the conversation, my mom was a little bit shocked and she got her account online right away.
Before this call, she used to tell us that Facebook is not going to do any good for us, my brother and I, don't use it too often.... bla bla bla
Now, this resisting of social media has influence her carrier directly; therefore, she has to make a change.
I believe that stories like my mom's is still happening around the globe, and we should take it seriously.
In my personal point of view, there are several reasons that keep elders, we are talking about age from 50-60, away from social media.
◎First, their friends don't use social media a lot.
◎Second, they are not willing to change.
◎Third, the younger generation refused to teach them.
◎Finally, the access of social media are not user friendly enough for elder users.
In this post, I would like to focus on the last point, the access to social media.
There are so many devices that we can use to hook on the net and enjoy the convenience of social media, such as smart phones, tablets, PCs and so on....
No matter how new the devices are, the youth generation, who grew up with this kind of technology, can usually learn how to operate without any difficulty.
However, for elder users, they might encounter some troubles when they're leaning to use it. For example, physical difficulties. As people gets older, they're eye-sight won't be as good as teens for sure. How could you expect elders to read those 6pt words on a 3.5-5 inch screen easily??!! What's more, the main stream operation systems(OS) don't include special features or functions for elder people.
According to the statistics from IDC, the 2012 market share of smart phone OS indicates that Google Androids got over half the market around the world. (Androids: 68.3% Apple iOS: 18.8%) The problem is, Androids was claimed one of the most un-user friendly OSs around my friends.
ps. Especially for the elders, it's simply not "instant thought" enough.
With a small screen, small words, un-user friendly OS, how could expect elders to learn it without facing troubles?
For me, a real user friendly OS should looks like Windows 8, with HUGE touch areas and images making people easier to touch the right area, and as easier as iOS to use. Of course, with bigger display will be great!
Why those manufacturers don't design products like this? Because, elders are not the main consumers for this kind of product. It's unprofitable!
To sum up, due to several reasons that make elders have hard time to approach social media, including the hardware to access social media, age discrimination of social media is now happenING online!
We'll discuss other reasons that leads to age discrimination later in my posts.
Please feel free to make comments!
( pics in this post are all searched from internet. )
