Sociale media en verschillen tussen generaties

Abstract

Objective: Mainly young people today spend a lot of time on the internet. They use social media more effectively and efficiently. Adults on the other hand have more difficulties to integrate with these developments. In this study the differences between generations in dealing and attitude toward social media regarding network learning, response requirement and privacy is examined. Method: In total 186 respondents were approached based on a combination of convenience and snowball sampling strategy. The data was collected by means of an online survey that was sent to respondents by email. The survey was a self-assessment of internet use and skills, and behaviors and attitudes toward various aspects of social media (i.e., network learning, response requirement and privacy), measured on a 7-point Likert scale. Results: The younger generation is making more use of internet than the older generation. The internet skills of the youngest target are lower than expected. The older generation doesn’t use social media to learn as much as the younger generation. With respect to response requirement there were no significant differences between age groups. Finally, the younger generation is taking fewer steps to protect their privacy and the older generation has a stricter attitude to preserve their privacy. The attitude of all constructs were significant predictors for the behavior within these constructs. Conclusions: This study confirmed several well-known patterns such as younger generations were using the internet more and the younger generation makes significant more use of social media. Despite some significant differences between generations we conclude that between-generation communication regarding social media is very important for the better use of this technology by all generations.