From Irritation to Older Adults' Well-Being: The Case of Facebook

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2020-08-27

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en

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Little is known about how older European people react to social media features and content. Considering that western world societies are becoming greying societies (Kasper, 2018), it is necessary to gain a better comprehension of older adults’ behaviour with social networks. Precisely, this study aims to gain a better understanding of the irritations caused by Facebook in older Italian people and how these irritations influence their well-being. For this purpose, the research aspires to fill a gap in the literature and to reach the final goal of improving older adults’ well-being. An online survey was conducted with 185 participants among Italian older adults to test hypotheses and the data was analysed by regression analysis methods. The results show that irritations generated by Facebook is negatively associated with the well-being of older adults generated by Facebook. In addition, the relationship is mediated by the attitude of older users towards Facebook; the irritations experienced are negatively related with older users’ attitude, which, in turn, is positively related with well-being. Surprisingly, the relationship is not mediated by the number of hours spent on Facebook. Well-being generated by Facebook does not depend on the time spent using the social media. Finally, the study discusses managerial and theoretical implications along with providing suggestions for future research.

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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen

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