This article about the benefits of a project teaching older people how to use the internet is inspiring - especially because there is always talk about how younger generations are lonelier due to all their "synthetic" relationships on social media (I have been told this many times during my research by people over fifty). However, the data I have collected do not support this claim, and there are people of all ages who don't jump to negative conclusions about life online.
If we keep an open mind (and keep a check on our sharing impulses), society can greatly benefit from online interactions. Specifically, social media has the potential to reconnect members of society who may have limited mobility and keep them sharp. One study involving participants over 68 years-old, reports "Those who had learned to use Facebook performed around 25 percent better than they did at the start of the study on tasks designed to measure their mental updating abilities."
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