Impact of Online Social Media Communication and Offline Geographical Distance on Elder Users’ Intergenerational Isolation: From Technology Affordance Perspective

Social media technology has become an integral part in elders’ daily communication. While there is an intense interest among HCI scholars to design effective function and interface to assist elder users’ digital communication, a theoretical understanding to guide this design is lacking. To address this research gap, this study examines the effect of social media communication on elders’ perception of intergenerational isolation. From the perspective of technology affordance (functional vs. emotional), we examines both the role of online usage behavior of social media (frequency and form) and offline intergenerational distance (geographical distance). 107 interview-based survey results show that: (1) Elders with a higher level of functional affordance are willing to try diverse social functions to communicate with their children, while emotional affordance will increase elders’ intergenerational communication frequency; (2) Communication frequency can reduce elders’ perceived intergenerational isolation, but diversity of communication forms cannot; (3) Unexpectedly, geographical distance significantly decrease elders’ perception of intergenerational isolation, because of the mediator role of increased intergenerational communication frequency and forms in social media. Our research has profound theoretical and practical implications.