Get Social: A Guide to Social Media For Seniors (& the Elderly)

September 17, 2024 | News | Reading Time 13:00 Minutes

Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, and YouTube: these platforms are no longer slated only for younger generations. As social media use skyrockets through the pandemic and beyond, there’s never been a better time to explore social media for seniors.

But how? With so much information available these days — and with technology developing at such a rapid pace — learning how to navigate social media, let alone the latest telecommunications software can feel like a Herculean task of epic proportions.

Seniors: don’t fret. We have your back.

And families of seniors: if you’ve been looking for a guide to help your elderly loved one learn the ins and outs of social media, this article was made for you.

Village Walk here: our tech-savvy, compassionate team of caregivers has more than 20 years of experience helping seniors and their families learn to navigate social media. We also have more than 30 years of experience providing assisted living solutions for seniors and their families across Long Island, New York.

Can we lend you a hand?

In this summative guide, we’ll discuss the benefits of social media for seniors, top social media platforms for seniors, and must-know information to protect yourself against pirating and scams on social media.

5 Benefits of social media for seniors

Although society at large totes social media for younger generations, the 65+ community is beginning to use social media at greater rates. Here are five reasons why social media can be beneficial for seniors, including the fact that social media can do the following:

1. Help you stay in touch with and reconnect with loved ones
2. Help you combat isolation
3. Keep you engaged with the latest breaking news
4. Provide a source of education and entertainment
5. Boost cognitive health and brain functioning

Let’s explore each in greater detail in the following sections.

1. Helps you stay in touch and reconnect with loved ones

As globalization increases, we now have tools that help us stay in touch from a distance. Social media can help seniors stay connected with their children and grandchildren from afar.

Whether opting for video calls, sharing pictures, or even hosting special events on social media, loved ones can now share happy memories, life updates, and more from a distance. Staying connected is as simple as a push of a button or a quick text message.

2. Helps combat isolation

Many seniors report feeling isolated as they grow older. For seniors not using home care or assisted living, unless seniors are making a huge effort to make new friends or visit senior centers, seniors may never share updates on their lives with loved ones.

Many seniors who aren’t as mobile find that popular social media platforms — such as Facebook or Instagram — can be a helpful way to feel included in a close loved one’s life. Whether commenting on a photo of friends, watching a video of a grandchild’s school graduation, or reading up on new content, social media can provide the tools to empower seniors to connect with others and be their best selves.

In short, social media can help seniors connect with loved ones and combat feelings of isolation.

3. Helps you stay in the know on the latest breaking news

A great way for older adults to stay up to date on the latest news is by following and subscribing to news publications’ social media pages. For example, many older adults use X (formerly called Twitter) to read up on the latest news from their favorite journalists, reporteres, and news media outlets

By signing up to receive notifications on current affairs from various news publications, seniors can stay informed on the latest events across the globe. Best of all, by staying up to date on the latest news, scientific developments, and research publications, seniors can even make healthier choices for themselves.

Whether learning the best ways to strengthen leg muscles or how the latest medications can affect the brain, social media can deliver important information to seniors to help them make more informed decisions for their health.

4. Can be a wonderful tool for education and entertainment

Feeling down? Need a little lift?

In addition to staying in touch with loved ones, many seniors use social media platforms for a little humor and, well, fun!

Social media can allow you to relive memories, play games, watch funny videos, or even read informational articles on a variety of topics. Most social media news feeds will provide you with topics of interest, making learning about cherished interests fun and engaging.

5. Boosts cognitive health and functioning

What’s more, social media has the potential to improve cognitive health and brain functioning. For example, participating in online discussions, forums, and conversations on Facebook groups are some of the many activities that are great for seniors with limited mobility.

By connecting with others and learning about new topics, seniors can receive psychological support.

And that’s not all.

Connecting with others on social media has the potential to help reduce anxiety and depression, increase cognitive functioning, and decrease the risk of cognitive decline.

At Village Green, our assisted living and memory care facility houses a dedicated room for internet use. In our facility, seniors can use unlimited WiFi to their heart’s content.

Whether opting to connect with a loved one on Skype, WhatsApp, or Facebook, our knowledgeable and friendly senior living team helps older adults stay connected to what — and who — matters most.

At Village Green, we believe connection is the gateway to better health. We do all that we can to help older people connect with new and old friends alike.

Did you know?

In the recent months just after the pandemic, our caregiving staff sprung into action.

We connected with families at home through social media. We held a six-foot-distanced exercise class with Lisa Wisel in our brand-new exercise room.

Our directors gathered to become “The Village Green Family” during a short sing-a-long.

These types of activities were offered to our residents safely in our community. You can view video coverage of our sing-a-long here!

Top social media platforms for seniors

Social media sites make keeping in touch with loved ones and staying in the loop easier than ever. But what social media do seniors use?

The following social media giants make staying in touch with loved ones and participating in community discussions easier and more enjoyable than ever for older adults.

Facebook

Popular among people aged 50 and older, Facebook makes it easy to stay in touch with like-minded individuals. For example, Facebook groups have been a game changer for individuals looking to join communities, groups, clubs, and forums of interest.

With its user-friendly interface and capacity to organize events, share pictures, and send videos to loved ones, Facebook makes connecting a walk in the park. Plus, staying up to date on loved ones’ lives is easy with the News Feed function.

YouTube and Pinterest

If you’re looking for social media platforms that tickle the senses, visually stunning Pinterest and immersive YouTube videos make education and entertainment fun for seniors. You’ll find photos and videos galore on every topic under the sun on these platforms.

Explore new interests, and personalize your viewing experience. Best of all, you can adjust privacy settings to make your profile and content subscriptions hidden if you prefer.

WhatsApp and Skype

Social media apps like WhatsApp and Skype have been around for decades. People of all different ages use these free messaging platforms to send unlimited messages to loved ones.

WhatsApp and Skype are what phone calls are in the digital age — but with a little something extra. Keep in touch with loved ones, join groups about your favorite interests, and subscribe to channels of interest.

WhatsApp, in particular, is one of our favorite social media apps for seniors because of its “share live location” feature. Families: if you’re worried about your elderly loved one navigating a new place, you can have your loved one share their live location within the app.

With the tap of a button, you can see exactly where your loved one is in real time. You can help your loved one stay safe and connected with apps like WhatsApp and Skype.

How to protect yourself while using social media

The vast majority of social media users are just like you and me: they want to connect with loved ones, learn about new topics, and stay entertained. But this new technology brings hackers with it.

Fortunately, we have some tips that will help keep your personal information safe from phishing and hacking attempts. 

Be wary of scammers

This goes without saying. Oftentimes, companies use social media to carry out giveaways and other sweepstakes to drive engagement and attract new customers. Unless you have a keen intuition of what a scammer looks like, scammers will create fake business profiles and prey on naive users to help extract sensitive personal information.

Seniors are often victims of fraud at higher levels than other age groups, according to Statista.com.

You’ll want to verify a business’ credentials before giving an unknown business sensitive information — or clicking on their suspicious website links. We use a website called ScamAdviser to help us suss out fishy-looking advertisements.

As new social media updates are released, scammers will find ways to scam. To avoid information compromises on social media, we recommend doing your research on the ways to avoid scammers in our current digital age.

Update your account’s password often

About every three to six months: this is best practice for when to update your social media account passwords. If you need help finding unique passwords for each of your online accounts, social media platforms will let you know which characters and numbers to include to bolster the strength of your password.

By updating your password on all your devices with new passwords, you’ll reduce the likelihood that a hacker breaches your online account

Activate security measures like multi-factor authentication

Requesting a text message, email, or phone call with a unique numerical code to verify your login credentials is one of the many security measures used to help reduce the likelihood that a hacker steals your information.

The above-mentioned added layer of security is called multi-factor authentication (sometimes called two-factor (2FA) authentication). This added layer of protection ensures scammers can’t access your account and make changes to — or recover and retrieve — your passwords.

Avoid sharing sensitive personal information with strangers

The nature of social media is to be social and share information with others to connect. The more information you share online, however, the more you place yourself in a position for scammers to exploit that information.

The following tips will help you stay safe while being active on social media:

• When accepting friend requests: verify that you know the person sending the request before you accept their friend request.
• When playing games or talking with an unknown contact: don’t click unknown links in advertisements or direct messages.
• When someone asks for your address, phone number, or other information: ignore these requests and report them as spam unless you know the person asking for your information.
• When something seems fishy or too good to be true: reach out to a cybersecurity expert before responding.

By taking these precautions (and more) into account, there’s no reason you can’t have an amazing experience with social media.

Still need more information? Consider taking tech classes to help you maximize your experience online with social media.

Or, you can always contact our senior care professionals for advice on helping seniors manage their social media use.

Table: Top social media platforms and safety tips

Top social media platforms for seniors	Social media safety tips for seniors
1. Facebook 2. WhatsApp 3. Skype 4. YouTube 5. Pinterest	1. Be wary of scammers 2. Update your password every 3-6 months 3. Activate security protocols like multi-factor and two-factor authentication 4. Avoid sharing sensitive personal information with people you don’t know

Get social and build village-wide community

Our team at Village Green has seen it all: having a large social media presence on Facebook, we often use social media to share the word about our many events and activities.

Whether promoting the latest news on assisted living, weekly events, dining options, or community classes we offer, social media has transformed the way our seniors live, laugh, and learn with loved ones.

Some of the top social media platforms for many of our residents include:

• Facebook
• WhatsApp and Skype
• YouTube and Pinterest

If you or an elderly loved one need support with anything social media-related, we’re all ears. Drop us a line at villagegreenlife@villagegreenseniorliving.com, visit our Facebook page, or call us anytime at (516) 271-2500.

We’d be happy to help!

Frequently asked questions about social media for seniors

What are some of the benefits of using social media for seniors?

Social media can help seniors with the following:

• Staying in touch with and reconnecting with loved ones
• Combating isolation
• Staying engaged with the latest breaking news
• Enjoying a new source for education and entertainment
• Boosting cognitive health and brain functioning

Which social media platforms are best for seniors?

The seniors at our assisted living facility tend to use the following social media platforms:

• Facebook
• WhatsApp
• Skype
• YouTube
• Pinterest

Other popular social media and community-based platforms for seniors include TikTok, Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter), and MyBoomerPlace.

How can I help my senior loved one learn to use social media?

Reach out to your tech-savvy friends, take tech classes, learn about the latest developments in social media, encourage your elderly loved one to engage with technology, and review privacy and security settings.

Above all, with seniors, take it slow.

If you’re looking to help your senior loved one learn to use social media, involve them in the process of your learning journey. Learning together can be a powerful way to connect and engage in the very service social media platforms provide, namely, connection!

“I can call them knowing I’ll receive a prompt response.”

Some of the most competent, kind, and attentive caregivers work at Village Green Assisted Living. Jessica, Sarah, and Kristin love their work and residents.

They try their best to maintain a high quality of life for each and everyone in their care. I value that I can call them with my questions and/or my concerns, knowing I will receive a prompt response.

The facility itself is beautiful, and the daily programs keep the residents engaged and active.” – Mary Z., appreciative Village Green family member