Abstract

Modern families no longer actively choose to live close to one another with work, schooling and many other factors driving the predilection for moving away from parents and siblings to secure better employment or achieve lifestyle goals rather than opt for the security of a close – by physical community. This change in community living has impacted seniors that are mostly the ones left behind as their children move away, they retire from work, and potentially encounter deaths in the family including partners or siblings that once formed connection and support. Facebook has emerged as the unlikely hero for seniors by providing an online third place where community and belonging can be actively maintained – supporting overall wellness and connectivity for seniors regardless of location, financial barriers, or language.

In nostalgic pre-industrial times, traditional community was a dependable structure from generation to generation, comprising of “densely connected relations organized around the home and small-town life” (Hampton & Wellman, 2018). Growing up together, growing older and remaining within a close-knit community went some way in protecting older people from isolation and disconnectedness by supplementing ageing with a support network that offered help, comfort and entertainment all within easy physical reach. In contrast, modern families no longer actively choose to live close to one another with work, schooling and various other factors driving the predilection for distance and choice rather than security and physical community and, with ageing now strongly correlated to increased feelings of loneliness, isolation and disconnectedness, ensuring seniors remain actively involved in their community has never been more important. Facebook has emerged as the unlikely hero for people over 65 by providing users with an online third place where community and belonging can be actively maintained – supporting overall wellness and connectivity for seniors regardless of location, financial barriers or language.

Ageing in modern times is associated with an increased need to ensure that seniors can grow older in an independent setting rather than in a communal environment, where numerous support services have emerged for seniors, helping them to achieve and maintain an autonomous and self-reliant lifestyle (Harley, Howland, et., al. 2016). The likelihood of growing old alone is now very real, hence the need to remain connected and engaged within a community setting having now become more important for seniors than ever before. Multiple later life changes can significantly impact on the connectivity of seniors within wider networks including retirement (no longer physically connecting with work friends), death in the family (a spouse/ partner or sibling that was once a comfort and a connection) and distance from family members – as many people now move away from family rather than remain close by which “often means that sources of companionship and social support do not emerge to compensate for increasing social isolation as expected in later life” (Harley, Howland, et., al. 2016). It is this lack of close – by support networks and companionship that impacts on levels of wellness in later life and as the fastest growing cohort of the population, it is estimated by 2050 2 billion of the population will be made up of people aged over 60 (Kamalpour, Watson, et., al. (2020) which will result in a huge subset of the population that is disconnected and alienated from community if they remain isolated from the internet and SNS providers such as Facebook.

Community via social networked sites (SNS) such as Facebook can serve to support older isolated individuals that are limited from connecting with others due to factors including health, mobility and location by offering an easy-to-use platform that actively enables consistent connectedness with family and friends.  Indeed Harley, Howland et al (2016) found that most older users of social networking sites tended to use the application to remain connected to known users rather than to develop new friends or contacts – thus exhibiting a tendency to “gravitate towards pre – existing social contacts as a way of dealing with the ageing process” (Harley, Howland, et., al. 2016). Further to ageing well, it was found that seniors with “restricted” networks (connections based mostly around family/ children) reported lower rates of well-being when compared to seniors that maintained ‘friend orientated’ or ‘diverse’ networks. With seniors predominantly connecting on SNS with people they know, someone initially more comfortable connecting only with child-based restricted networks could potentially broaden their community reach as Facebook tends to feed content to users that matches their usage type. Actively engaging with Facebook could therefore potentially lead those with restricted networks that are lower on the wellbeing scale to improve their outlook and their connections (Djundeva, Dykastra et., al. 2018).

With such a large portion of the population susceptible to disengagement, health deterioration and other negative aspects associated with ageing, it is important that online connection and membership to online communities is taken up by older adults as a priority to ensure connectedness to online communities, family, information and services. “Two affordances of digital communication technologies, persistent contact and pervasive awareness, are ushering in fundamental change to the structure of community” (Hampton, 2016). Indeed, digital technologies and more specifically, Web 2.0 applications have enabled a shift away from mobility being the key driver of community engagement with communities no longer restricted by location and mobility as a barrier to connection. The abundance of applications available that actively enabling community development has also thus enabled persistent contact and pervasive awareness to evolve into a continuum that can be tapped into readily by anyone in a pre-determined social network – such as friends on Facebook – or as a lurker, keeping tabs on someone with a public profile.

There are further benefits to seniors actively engaging with Facebook – the application not only provides continuous contact with ‘friends’ it also provides content that may be relevant to the user such as health related services based on the algorithms of Facebook which determine what type of content will appear on any users feed based on information captured by each user – thus ensuring that older users are best placed in keeping track of their own wellness due to access afforded by Facebook to content which is great seeing that “difficulty understanding basic health information is associated with poorer self – care and increased risk of death” (Nursing Standard, 2014).

To date, technology has been given a bad rap and wholly responsible for the perceived loss of social physical contact. When TV was introduced, there was commentary around the replacement of conversation thanks to this new technology and the same can be said for the internet and more specifically for Web 2.0 applications (specifically SNS) seen as responsible for the loss of face-to-face interaction. The reality is that the internet is not responsible for the lack of physical interaction – it just gave way to opportunity where applications where develop that address the already present gap in connection. Facebook as a widely used SNS is arguably responsible for ensuring that connection persists regardless of mobility – people that have changed jobs can continue to interact with their past colleagues, students can re connect with past students and continue to interact many years after leaving school. Seniors that had been left isolated during Covid pandemics could connect with their families and friends as well as engage health services and find information readily – so long as they had an internet connection and a Facebook profile.

Communities can be defined as a group of people that have something in common, be it an interest in cooking pasta or an affiliation to an organisation such as school, work, sport or hobby communities along with culturally or location-based groups. Community members can catch up in person at a park, a restaurant or online via social networking sites set up for members. These spaces, whether physical or online can be classified as a Third Place where no one is the host, and everyone is welcome – a collection of like – minded individuals connecting on commonalities. Third places as a social construct were first defined post World War 2 in the US and described as a place where individuals can converse and connect in a physical space. It is theorized that this construct was developed to support the notion that connection may be lost if not for these third place venues (third places were exclusively viewed as physical spaces) (Vaux & Langlais, 2021).

Facebook allows for pervasive awareness of friends – Jenny had a baby! – as well as persistent contact with loved ones – let me check on what Jenny is up to today; she has such a wonderful family! Many seniors would no doubt prefer to socialise in person, yet there can be multiple barriers that need to be overcome in many instances to allow for physical connection within a community such as mobility or location issues, accessibility, financial issues, health reasons or language barriers. Facebook enables a third place where these issues can readily be overcome, and seniors can remain connected to their communities whether it be family and friends or as part of a hobby or interest they like to follow. Seniors using SNS tend to connect predominantly with people they know – rather than exhibit lurking activity of someone they do not know. This works well with online communities as they can feel as though they belong and have something to look forward to – all key aspects of ageing well.  

Third places have been traditionally defined by nine key characteristics including Accessibility/ accommodation, Conversation as the main activity and Regulars – people that regularly attend the space (Vaux & Langlais. 2021). Vaux and Langlais (2021) went a step further and updated the defining characteristics of third places to cater for the inherent changes in how people interact since the original list was published (1982). The new categories include Active and passive engagement, where users can view and engage with content of their choosing, as well as Relationship interaction & maintenance where users can select who to friend request and subsequently follow on Facebook as part of their friends list and news feed. Further to who seniors choose to follow is what the algorithm will curate for their feed based on their online activity which subsequently offers the user multiple opportunities to connect further with other groups and interests.

In preindustrial times, physical communities were predominantly made up of family and friends that tended to live close to one another working and schooling within the same community. In most instances this communal setup supported seniors by ensuring that there would always be someone close by to chat with or support them if they needed any help. More recently this pattern of living close to family has somewhat changed due to many people taking on work opportunities that are further away from family or moving to alternate locations potentially based on interests such as a sea change or a tree change – no longer bound by a physical community. In the absence of localised contact Facebook as an example of an on line third place has provided seniors with an opportunity to remain connected with family and friends regardless of distance. Facebook offers its users access to information, forums and a pervasive awareness of one’s online community which is especially well suited to seniors that are otherwise isolated.

Although an online third place can be a great space to connect and engage with other users, it does not meet the physical aspects of ageing well that also need to be met by seniors such as regular exercise. Future research would be best placed in taking into consideration longitudinal studies comparing existing online senior community members versus seniors not connected to the Internet – whether that be due to fear of technology, financial barriers or other.  The findings of these studies may pave the way for an integrated solution in supported living for seniors that includes online community set up and internet connectivity as the bare basics. People are now living longer, and life expectancy improvements mean that more people will get the opportunity to live long lives – the challenge is to ensure that older people live long lives that are enjoyable and connected – not isolated and lonely. Facebook is a great tool that supports and actively encourages the take up of friends and partaking in community connectedness. There is opportunity to increase the suitability of the tool to better suit senior users and their needs thus ensuring that there is a space available to everyone at any stage of their life – both physical and online – encouraging ongoing wellness and community engagement.

References:

Hampton, K. N. (2016). Persistent and Pervasive Community: New Communication Technologies and the Future of Community. American Behavioral Scientist, 60(1), 101–124. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764215601714

Harley, A. H. Howland, K. Harris, E. C. (2016). Trajectories to Community engagement: Understanding older people’s experiences and engagement of online and local communities, The Journal of Community, 12 (1). https://doi.org/10.15353/joci.v12i1.3213

Kamalpour, M. Watson, J. Buys, J. (2020). How can online communities support resilience factors among older adults. International journal of Human – Computer interaction,14 (36). https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2020.1749817

Social and online engagement linked to better health literacy. (2014). Nursing Standard (2014+), 29(15), 16. http://dx.doi.org/10.7748/ns.29.15.16.s20

Vaux, D. E., & Langlais, M. R. (2021). An Update of Third Place Theory: Evolving Third Place Characteristics Represented in Facebook. International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction (IJTHI), 17(4), 117-130. http://doi.org/10.4018/IJTHI.2021100107

Maja Djundeva, PhD, Pearl A Dykstra, PhD, Tineke Fokkema, PhD, Is Living Alone “Aging Alone”? Solitary Living, Network Types, and Well-Being, The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Volume 74, Issue 8, November 2019, Pages 1406–1415, https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gby119