Social Media Dependency and Facebook Usage among the Older Adults of Kerala

Abstract

Social media has become an integral part of modern society, with people of all ages using various platforms to connect, share information, and stay up-to-date on current events. However, there has been a recent trend of increased Facebook usage among older adults, which has raised concerns about social media dependency. The current study explores the trends in social media dependency and Facebook intensity among older adults of Kerala. The present study employed a quantitative research design and the sample consisted of 416 older adults, aged above 60 years. Two scales were used to collect data: the Social Media Dependency Scale (SMDS) and the Facebook Intensity Measure (FBI). Frequency and percentage analysis, Spearman’s Rho, Kruskal-Wallis H test, and Mann-Whitney U test were carried out using SPSS (Version 23) for deriving results. Those individuals who are more dependent on social media are also more likely to engage in high levels of Facebook activity. A good majority of the participants were found to be using social media and Facebook for more than 3 hours in a day and having more than 400 friends. Social media dependency and Facebook intensity were reported to be high in urban localities, South Kerala having significantly higher rates of social media dependency when compared to North and Central regions. Social media dependency was found to be high among males, whereas no difference was in Facebook intensity among male and females.