The Boomers, Social Media, And Politics

Many conservatives consequently became leftist as Donald Trump took control of the Republican Party. Not surprisingly, they have voted for Joe Biden because they were fed up with the current political situation.

Boomers and Social Media

According to statistics, approximately 23 percent of the American population are baby boomers. This generation is generally considered clueless and tends to be conservative. As Louis Leung wrote in “Generational Differences in Content Generation in Social Media” published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior (2013, PDF ), boomers were more fixated on television as a medium of information and entertainment. Very few of them really can download youtube videos online but they are open to changes.

Along with the development of technology, boomers slowly switched mediums. Now, they also use the internet to stay connected with friends and family. Moreover, in a pandemic like now.

Hanna Kozlowska, in her report for Quartz, said that boomer Facebook users had more than doubled during the 2012-2019 period. At least 37 percent of America’s boomer population now has a Facebook account.

Politics in Social Media

More boomers are exposed to content containing false information, especially in the days leading up to the election. It is common knowledge that social media is the best medium for politicians to get support. In fact, in ridiculous ways.

In 2016, for example, Cambridge Analytica advertised Trump’s strengths and Hillary Clinton’s weaknesses on Facebook. With a million dollars in funds, the ad can appear every day. The content has also been personalized by utilizing Facebook user data. The data is collected without the user’s consent through an application called The One Click Personality Test.

Not only that, but Cambridge Analytica also extracts data from the circle of friends of the application user. The move was obviously ridiculous, but Cambridge Analytica succeeded in having 5,000 personal data points for every voter in America — including those of the boomers.

In the 2020 elections, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube have made policy changes. Even so, content containing misleading information and hate speech still floods. Social media was created to build social relationships.

Unfortunately, it was hijacked by political interests. Not just a link between peers, social media is apparently quite effective at spreading influence. Whether the platform’s founders realized this potential or not early in its development, they clearly failed to save its users.