Social media experiences of adults over 65 during Covid-19 pandemic

The aim of the thesis is to investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the social media experiences of individuals over 65. The thesis focuses on digital media literacy as explanatory literature to unpack people’s social media behaviors. For this aim, the thesis demonstrates the division between digital immigrants and digital natives to analyze the concerning generation's skills and experiences while using social media. To answer the research question qualitatively, semi-structured interviews were employed with 15 participants whose ages range from 66 to 76 and who reside in Turkey in the cities of Ankara, İstanbul, İzmir, Bursa, and Muğla. The analyses of the interviews reveal eight common themes: access, connectedness, reasons behind using social media, need for support, anxiety, adaptation, the impact of COVID-19, and further desire to advance social media practice. The thesis ultimately demonstrates how these frames are related to each other and how they inform the research on digital media literacy. In the end, the research demonstrates that COVID-19 seems to have significantly transformed digital immigrants’ willingness to engage with social media more than ever.