IS SENIOR LIVING THE NEW BEST MEDICINE?
ONLINE VS. IN PERSON: WHAT’S HEALTHIER?
When a doctor, counselor, or loved one “prescribes” more social interaction, there’s sometimes a caveat added: “But no screens!”
Is email, video phoning, team playing of video games, texting, and social media sub-par socializing? Can online interaction be healthy, too?
Current research specifically into the health of older people says screens aren’t the bad guy—and can even be the best kind of socializing for some.
Researcher and professor John Piette, PhD, set out to alleviate the loneliness problem with the SPEAK! (Seniors Promoting English Acquisition and Knowledge) project. The program is volunteering with a twist: Older adults use webcams for one-on-one instruction and practice to English Language Learners (ELL), some in the United States, and some in Mexico and Latin America.
Both sides get a short training in how to interact—the coaches on how to ask positive, conversation-sparking questions (“What makes someone a good friend?” “Tell me something you’re really proud of.”). Learners get a lesson on how to interact with seniors, including showing appreciation.
It’s a safe way for those who enjoy—or enjoyed—teaching or traveling to revive these interests. Engagement goes up for the coaches, and job opportunities go up for the learners.
It wasn’t the medium that mattered, but the personalities of the coaches, Piette found. Online engagement was still quality engagement, and the project draws people who enjoy being useful and helping others.
Screens aren’t the bad guy—and can even be the best kind of socializing for some.
Most of the research on social engagement, health, and online behavior has been among children and adolescents, an article in press at the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry points out.
“Using Skype to Beat the Blues” looked at the relationship between video chat and other technologies and symptoms in depression in older people—and found it may actually lower risks.
The researchers found that “users of video chat had approximately half the probability of depressive symptoms
at two-year follow-up compared to non-users and users of email, social media, and instant messaging.”
“Put simply,” the authors said, “we know that time spent shopping on Amazon, or even scrolling through Facebook posts, is not the same as talking with a family member on Skype, so we must not lump them into the same category.”
“Our results align well with the idea that the ‘richer’ a communication technology is in the exchange of social cues—in a sense, the more it mimics in-person social contact—the greater the potential for social and emotional connectedness,” the authors wrote.
People with limited mobility or with relationships with those far away may keep up their social engagement through online methods. “If, however, online interactions supplant real-world relationships—a substitution effect— this may be a recipe for being worse off,” they wrote.
Learning more computer skills can in itself be a boost to sense of purpose and confidence, the Global Council for Brain Health said, in its paper “The Brain and Social Connectedness.”
As for the myths about older adults fumbling with technology, Piette says this didn’t bear out. “I was so pleasantly surprised at how little the technology was a barrier,” he says. Being hard of hearing also was not an obstacle—the one-on-one interaction cut down on ambient noise.
By the end of the year, he’ll have run hundreds of SPEAK! sessions, some in residential communities. He’s going for a grant to study effects in mild cognitive impairment and hopes to set up a webinar or similar tools for others to create such a program.
One of the SPEAK! participants was not only socially engaged online, but also engaging in person. She had been helping Hilton employees in Mexico, then took a trip to Mexico and stopped by the hotel—the best of both worlds, online and face-to-face.
12 SENIOR LIVING EXECUTIVE MAY/JUNE 2019
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