Project Fye
Understanding of how senior citizens discern truth and authenticity in news and media.
Fact-check bot for Older Adults countering information bubble
Challenge
Understanding of how senior citizens discern truth and authenticity in news and media.
How might we provide a succinct experience to make Older Adults digitally street smart?
Designer
Wilson Wu
Purva Takkar
Wiryan Tirtarahardja
Jenn Jiang
Time
May.2020
Role / Contribution
Design research
User Experience Design
User Interface Design
Prototyping
System Modeling
Service Blueprint
Brief
We hoped to learn how senior citizens are impacted by the information bubble that they live in online and gain an understanding of how they discern truth and authenticity in news and media.
Senior citizens as defined in the United States are people over the age of 60. We interview 6 seniors and 2 senior experts on this matter. Screening for senior citizens that have online activities such as social networking and social media.
After the interviews and synthesis process. We realized that Older Adults were overwhelmed with the amount of information online and did not know what to believe. While peer pressure from family got them there, they still preferred offline talks. Their opinions also brought about a reluctance of being their true self. We also find out the issue of ageism in media houses and tech service providers sometimes categorized all Older adults over 60 in the same group.
From there we form the HMW question and propose a fact-checker chatbot for all forwards. It helps users to fact check and provides other relevant content and trends. The design can be implemented in the medium that they are already accustomed to.
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Background
We hope to learn how senior citizens are impacted by the information bubble that they live in online.
We also hope to gain an understanding of how senior citizens discern truth and authenticity in news and media.
All of us have always had Older adults like our grandparents be a joyous part of our lives. We learn continuously from them and help them learn in these new modern times.
We hope to learn how senior citizens are impacted by the information bubble that they live in online. We also hope to gain an understanding of how senior citizens discern truth and authenticity in news and media.
But what does that even mean?
An information bubble is the bubble that algorithms create for you based on your online activity without you even realizing it.
For our research, we stuck to AARP’s definition that anyone over the age of 60 is a Senior Citizen.
Secondary Research
We initiate secondary research online to know the theme and context regarding the impact of the information bubble on older adults. Using prompts keyword such as "Senior citizens", "Information bubble", "social media", "Older Adults and Technology", "News", "Truth and authenticity".
Elders and Social Media
“The fastest growing social media population is now above 74 years of age.”
11% of Facebook users (14.8 million people) are seniors
- Research by Redhaven Care
Elders and Post Truth / Fake news
“Older People Shared Fake News on Facebook More Than Others in 2016 Race, Study Says.”
Another analysis Shows How Viral Fake Election News Stories Outperformed Real News On Facebook
- NewYorkTime
We used Affinity Diagramming to collaboratively sort clutter findings into themes and spotlight the most important quotation.
Elders are the majority
“America Is A Country Of Old People. And That’s A Huge Problem…”
A large chunk of the population is above 60 years old, however, their views and priorities are often overlooked or neglect from the majority.
- Rantt Media, Greg Fish
Loneliness and isolation issue
“1/3 old people are lonely, which lack of physical contact and do not spend much time socializing”
Loneliness affects old people’s health, on top of the fact that due to their advanced age they most vulnerable to diseases.
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Interview
We interviewed 6 seniors and 2 senior experts. We are looking for senior citizens (above 60s) who use digital communications (social media, instant messaging, etc).
On our journey to find out. We realized that senior citizens took offence to the term and we shifted to “Older Adults”. Also, they were hesitant to be interviewed as they feared judgment. Despite the disruption of COVID-19, we managed to speak to these 6 Older adults.
During the interviews, we also performed some exercises (when possible) where we observed and evaluated their process of discerning true/false information over prepared article clippings and a “Facebook Wall” co-design where they listed content they wanted to see the most on their feed.
Barry Katz
Author, CCA, Stanford Professor, Design Historian
Gretchen Addi
Design Consultant, IDEO
We also reached out to two experts to help us truly understand the nuances. Barry Katz, a design Historian helped us study the history of media and how the older adults have grown with that. Gretchen Addi, a design consultant at Ideo, brought to us the perspective of ageism and how most platforms these days aren’t designed for Older Adults.
Framing
Rich with all the knowledge that we had learned, we started mapping out all these interviews. As we arranged these post-its over and over, an initial very broad framework and themes started to emerge.
We realized that Older Adults were overwhelmed with the amount of information online and did not know what to believe. While peer pressure from family got them there, they still preferred offline talks. Their opinions also brought about a reluctance of being their true self. We also find out the issue of ageism in media houses and tech service providers sometimes categorized all Older adults over 60 in the same group.
There was an online information consumption pattern. From whatever their touchpoints online are, Older Adults encounter information, evaluate it in their own particular ways, act upon it or ignore it which forms a mindset, which in turn reinforces the information they encounter on these touchpoints.