Examining Public Awareness of Ageist Terms on Twitter: Content Analysis

Emily Schramm; Christopher C Yang; Chia-Hsuan Chang; Kristine Mulhorn; Shushi Yoshinaga; Jina Huh-Yoo

doi:10.2196/41448

Examining Public Awareness of Ageist Terms on Twitter: Content Analysis

JMIR Aging. 2023 Sep 11:6:e41448. doi: 10.2196/41448.

Authors

Emily Schramm¹, Christopher C Yang², Chia-Hsuan Chang², Kristine Mulhorn³, Shushi Yoshinaga⁴, Jina Huh-Yoo²

Affiliations

¹ College of Medicine, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United States.
² Department of Information Science, College of Computing and Informatics, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United States.
³ Health Administration Department, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United States.
⁴ Westphal College of Media Arts and Design, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United States.

PMID: 37698119
PMCID: PMC10507520
DOI: 10.2196/41448

Abstract

Background: The World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Gerontological Society of America have made efforts to raise awareness on ageist language and propose appropriate terms to denote the older adult population. The COVID-19 pandemic and older adults' vulnerability to the disease have perpetuated hostile ageist discourse on social media. This is an opportune time to understand the prevalence and use of ageist language and discuss the ways forward.

Objective: This study aimed to understand the prevalence and situated use of ageist terms on Twitter.

Methods: We collected 60.32 million tweets between March and July 2020 containing terms related to COVID-19. We then conducted a mixed methods study comprising a content analysis and a descriptive quantitative analysis.

Results: A total of 58,930 tweets contained the ageist terms "old people" or "elderly." The more appropriate term "older adult" was found in 11,328 tweets. Twitter users used ageist terms (eg, "old people" and "elderly") to criticize ageist messages (17/60, 28%), showing a lack of understanding of appropriate terms to describe older adults. Highly hostile ageist content against older adults came from tweets that contained the derogatory terms "old people" (22/30, 73%) or "elderly" (13/30, 43%).

Conclusions: The public discourse observed on Twitter shows a continued lack of understanding of appropriate terms to use when referring to older adults. Effort is needed to eliminate the perpetuation of ageist messages that challenge healthy aging. Our study highlights the need to inform the public about appropriate language use and ageism.

Keywords: COVID-19; Twitter; ageism; aging; disease; elderly; informatics; language; older adults; pandemic; public; social media; term; terminology; tweets.