Adults adapting to modern social media

By Jamie Fleming

            Adults are finding some difficulty adapting to social media, whereas children embrace the updates.

           

With the internet rising, social media is becoming more prevalent in society. Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and many more sites are becoming increasingly popular among adolescents.

Young adults are spending an average of three hours a day on social media, according to Marketing Charts Publishing website.

Lately, the amount of adults using social media is increasing. 76 percent of adults use social media, according to Pew Research. 

Adults are using social media nearly as much as adolescents are. According to the Social Networking Use Data found by the Pew Research Center in April 2015:

            -72 percent use Facebook

            -25 percent use LinkedIn

            -23 percent use Twitter

            -31 percent use Pinterest

            -28 percent use Instagram

            -10 percent use Tumblr

These numbers are increasing, according to Pew Research.

Jennifer Hardin, the Director of Marketing at O’Neill and Associates works in a public relations firm that develops their own social media platforms to lead by example.

“I do find that a majority of adults use Facebook, and many use Twitter as well. As Instagram and Pinterest increase in popularity, I have noticed a growing interest among my older colleagues in these platforms, but mostly only among females. Snapchat has increased in popularity, especially among the 18 to 34-year-old age set, and many presidential campaigns have begun to employ the platform in their communications strategy. However, I have found it surprising that, among adults, the willingness to understand/employ Snapchat is not consistent with their attitude and willingness towards other platforms,” Hardin said.

Adults have more trouble than adolescents adapting to social media and the infinite possibilities that come with each new site.

Charles Person, a Stonehill student’s father said he questions “if someone is looking at your Facebook.” It is quite difficult to conform to the idea that people can be checking in on your life without you knowing.

Anna Fischetti, a school secretary, said she got Instagram to “see the pictures that her friends and family were posting.”

“I didn’t have much trouble adapting to Instagram, just finding people because they use usernames. But I got an Instagram to view what pictures people post without getting into everyone’s daily activities that they put on Facebook, like posting “I am going to the bathroom now,” said Fischetti. 

Some adults find adapting to technology difficult and need help finding their way around social media sites. Just 18 percent of adults feel more comfortable learning new technology on their phone alone, and 77 percent indicate they would need assistance during the process, according to the Pew Research Center.

Usually, these adults turn to their children and family members to help them adapt to social media.

Francesca Rizzo, a freshman at Stonehill College, said her father uses Facebook and her mother uses Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat.

Her mother “couldn’t figure out Snapchat, and the concept of the stories people post, she also didn’t understand the point of filtering all of your photos,” Rizzo said.

Daniel Bomba, a freshman at Stonehill College said he was “unnecessarily worried,” when his father got a Facebook account.

Bomba’s father has a Facebook and his mother uses her husbands Facebook to search people.

“They just laugh at people on it. You know those parents who post a picture and a paragraph if their kid does something like get a hit in baseball? They laugh at that,” Bomba said.

Bomba said his parents made him accept their friends request on Facebook.

“I was pretty passive about that because I use Facebook the least but still enough so that they don’t get curious as to what I’m posting on other sites,” Bomba said.

Brendan Daly, a freshman at Stonehill College, said he doesn’t like his parents using social media.

“Time that would be otherwise spent with family or having conversation was instead spent on using her mobile device and social media accounts,” Daly said.

Zachary Fanara, a freshman at Stonehill College said his parents signed up for Facebook around five years ago. Fanara said he winds up helping his parents use social media often.

“I have to help them constantly, my mom likes to upload pictures and has trouble creating albums,” Fanara said.

One concern some teens and young adults have is protecting their privacy, they don’t want their parents to see what they post.

“I only cared about [my mom] getting Facebook because I didn’t want them checking up on my stuff,” Fanara said.

Joseph Hanlon, a freshman at Stonehill College, said his parents began signing up for social media accounts around three years ago. His mother got Instagram and Twitter accounts to be up with the times, Hanlon said.

“I was embarrassed because my mom is not very tech savvy to begin with,” Hanlon said.

Jennifer Hardin, the Director of Marketing at O’Neill and Associates, says adult’s adaptation to social media is generally based on their willingness to learn and open their mind to the change.

“In my experience, adults' adaptation to social media is quite dependent on their curiosity and willingness to learn, regardless of age. Many communications professionals, specifically, choose to learn by doing and will create personal accounts on new social media platforms so that they can have a hands-on learning experience and then translate that experience to benefit their clients. On the other hand, I work with professionals' who have a limited interest in understanding social media and are only willing to learn about it insofar as it will help their business. It is very much on a need-to-know basis,” Hardin said.