Old folks use Facebook for social surveillance.

Young people have been using Facebook as a way to stay connected for more than a decade. Now a new study shows older adults social media's fastest growing demographic are doing the same.

"Earlier studies suggest a positive relationship between bonding and bridging social capital and Facebook use among college students," says Eun Hwa Jung, a doctoral candidate in mass communications at Penn State. "Our study extends this finding to senior citizens.

"As reported in the study published in the journalComputers in Human Behaviour, the desire to stay connected to family and keep in touch with old friends social bonding is the best predictor of Facebook adoption and use, followed closely by the desire to find and communicate with like-minded people social bridging.There are other things that motivate older users, Jung says.

"Because they are now familiar with social networking technology, some seniors are just starting to use Facebook out of curiosity."Older adults who are motivated by social bonding and curiosity tend to use Facebook as a form of social surveillance, says S Shyam Sundar, professor of communications and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory.

"Surveillance is the idea that you're checking out what people are up to," he says. "This is something that many older adults do.

They want to see how their kids are doing and, especially, what their grandkids are doing."Seniors were not motivated to actively participate on Facebook when family and friends prod them to use the site.

"When senior citizens respond to requests to join Facebook, that tends to be a negative predictor of use," Sundar says. "In other words, they are not intrinsically motivated to participate when someone else requests that they join.

"Older adults also tend to use Facebook features that their younger counterparts favour, Jung says. "Our findings show that message-interactivity features for example the chatting function and wall posting are the dominant activities...

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