title: Facebook as a site for negative age stereotypes.
abstract: Ageism has been found to exist throughout a wide variety of societal institutions. Whether it also exists in social networking sites has not been previously considered. To explore this possibility, we conducted a content analysis of each publicly accessible Facebook group that concentrated on older individuals. The site "Descriptions" of the 84 groups, with a total of 25,489 members, were analyzed. The mean age category of the group creators was 20-29; all were younger than 60 years. Consistent with our hypothesis, the Descriptions of all but one of these groups focused on negative age stereotypes. Among these Descriptions, 74% excoriated older individuals, 27% infantilized them, and 37% advocated banning them from public activities, such as shopping. Facebook has the potential to break down barriers between generations; in practice, it may have erected new ones.
authors: Address correspondence to Becca R. Levy, Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Yale School of Public Health, 60 College Street, PO Box 208034, New Haven, CT 06520-8034. E-mail: Becca.Levy@yale.edu.
authors: Becca R
authors: BR
authors: Levy
authors: Pil H
authors: PH
authors: Chung
authors: Talya
authors: T
authors: Bedford
authors: Kristina
authors: K
authors: Navrazhina
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011287:Prejudice / Q000523:psychology*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D061108:Social Media; D013240:Stereotyping
keywords: Age stereotypes; Ageism; Attitudes & perception toward aging/aged; Intergen- erational relationships; Social media