Social media usage pattern among elderly people in Malaysia: a descriptive study / Diana Ali

Social Media is a well-known and powerful tool that able to enhance our communication and collaboration among our communities. Young group has been seen to gain major benefits from the Social Media technology and the elderly are the last to be engaged with it. This study reports insights of the descriptive usage pattern of Social Media among the elderly people in Malaysia and the factors that correlate to the Social Media usage from integrated perspectives of TAM. Analysis of this data revealed two usage patterns described as demographics and socio-economic which are age, gender, race, monthly household income, education level, geographic location, partnership and employment status. Results of this study showed that variables (such as employment status, gender and monthly household income) play significant roles in predicting the usage of Social Media. While age, race, partnership, education level and geographic locations variables appeared to have no influence. The findings from this study has implication to be as one of the approach to obtain information for a better planning of senior citizens in Malaysia regarding the computer and Internet technology.