Have you blamed Facebook for distracting you from studying for an exam? When exam time comes many students prefer to study in the library hoping to focus better, but most of them actually end up on Facebook! As “harmful” as Facebook use may seem to young people, the psychology researcher Janelle Wohltmann shows that Facebook may have social and cognitive benefits to elderly people!
Facebook as weapon of mass distraction via Flickr creative commons
Wohltmann’s study involved three groups of 14 participants of age between 68 to 91. The participants have either never used Facebook or used it less than once a month.
(Group 1)
Wohltmann provided training on how to use Facebook to the older adults in the first group. Participants were asked to befriend each other on Facebook and post on the website at least once every day.
(Group 2)
The second group of participants were taught to use Penzu.com, an online diary site. Participants in this group were asked to post at least one entry per day containing no more than five sentences, which are the typical lengths of Facebook posts. However, unlike on Facebook, the diary entries were private and not shared with anyone.
(Group 3)
The third group of participants were told that they were on “waitlist” for Facebook training but the study subjects did not actually complete the training.
Elderly people on Facebook via Flickr creative commons
Prior to the actual experiment, the participants completed questionnaires and tests to measure their level of social connectivity and cognitive ability. At the end of the study, participants completed the same tests and the performance differences were measured and analyzed.
Study results show that participants in the group who learnt how to use Facebook performed approximately 25% better on the assessments than the other two groups, who did not really show much improvement. Hence Wohltmann concludes from her study that teaching older people to use Facebook could improve their cognitive functions and also make them feel more socially involved. A possible explanation to the cognitive benefit of Facebook is that on Facebook there is always new information coming in so people need to constantly shift their attention and re-focus.
Although more research is needed to further confirm and expand on the results of Wohltmann’s study, Facebook seems to be a rather promising way to improve old people’s cognitive ability and make them feel more connected!
-Stella Meng
