It took my father nearly 70 years to become a member of the social world. After decades of tinkering with Photoshop on his aging Macintosh, he upgraded to an iPad and began uploading collages of photos he took on his evening walks around London to Flickr and then to Instagram. A photographer from Venezuela praised his composition. An Italian violinist started a conversation about creativity.
And just as quickly as I gained new friends, I lost them. One night in 2020, he had a seizure. Then he started forgetting what he had just been told and started sleeping most of the day. When he picked up the iPad again, he didn’t understand it. After a year or so, he put an electric kettle on top of the gas stove. Shortly thereafter, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
Estimation 7 million Today, more Americans age 65 and older are living with Alzheimer’s disease. By 2050, that number is expected to rise to nearly 13 million. Millions more have other forms of dementia or cognitive decline. these diseases Simple tasks may be confused, language may be difficult to understand, and memory may be fleeting, all of which do not lead to social connections. Additionally, apps and websites are constantly updated, which can be especially challenging for patients with learning and memory disabilities. This means that people like my father, who rely heavily on social media to stay in touch, may face even higher barriers to communication.
About a year after the attack, my dad turned his iPad back on and couldn’t find the Photoshop app. the logo was changed. Instagram is currently reel And the shopping tab was not navigable. Some of his followers on Instagram and Flickr migrated to TikTok, a new app he had no hope of running. Every time we talk, he asks me where my past life has gone. “Where are my photos?” “Why did you delete my profile?” “I wrote a reply to your message. Where did it go?” What seems to have caused the most anxiety for him is the digital world he had once mastered and the ability to create and connect that it gave him.
In online support forums, caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia describe how their loved ones are struggling to navigate the platforms they were once familiar with. One member of the dementia group Subreddit, who asked to remain anonymous out of respect for his father’s privacy, said that about 10 years ago, his father, an avid email sender, started using a site called Friends Reunited to remember his past. He said he was using it. And a reunion with an old acquaintance. Then, after a series of strokes, he was diagnosed with dementia. His PC now lies unused. Amy Evans, 62, of Sacramento, told me that her father, who died in May at age 92, started acting strange online at the same time he developed Alzheimer’s disease. He posted on Facebook that he was looking for a sex partner. Then I started responding to scam emails and ordering Xanax from India. Evans eventually installed child protection software on his computer and gave him ground pad To connect with family and friends. But he forgot how to use it. Nasrin Chaudhry, a former public school teacher’s assistant in New York City, used to use Facebook to communicate with family and friends every day, until she suffered a stroke and was later diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease at age 55. Nowadays, you sit and tap your screen for hours. Her finger, even though there was nothing there, her daughter Eshita Nusrat told me. “When I get home from work, she’ll say she texted me and I didn’t reply. But when I look at her phone, she typed it into YouTube and said I tried to post it as a video,” said another of Chaudhry’s men. said his daughter, Jessica Sarova. Chaudhry is currently taking calls with the help of his family, but said he feels out of control of his life because he cannot use social media.
Many patients with dementia and related cognitive impairments have lost the ability to communicate, whether using technology or not. It’s a vicious cycle, as social disconnection can ultimately accelerate cognitive decline from Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, says Joel Salinas, a clinical assistant professor of neurology at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine. he told me. Social media, by its very nature, poses a particular challenge for people with dementia. The online world is a primarily visual medium with complex workflows, and dementia often disrupts visual processing. interrupted Or be late. And unlike face-to-face conversations, landlines, or even flip phones, social media is constantly evolving. Every few months, buttons may change, icons may be reorganized, or new features may be released on a particular platform. Tech companies say these changes will make the user experience more seamless, but for people with short-term memory loss, the user experience can feel completely impossible.
JoAnne Juett, enterprise product manager for accessibility at Meta, said that overall, social media companies have yet to find the right solution for users with dementia. “I would say we are addressing more vision loss, hearing loss and motor skills issues,” she said. Design changes that address such obstacles could help the many dementia patients whose mobility is limited due to old age. But Juett believes AI may be essential to addressing the unique needs of older adults and users with cognitive disabilities. “For example, if I run out of Windows 7, AI could identify my usage patterns and tailor Windows 11 to me,” she said. Jewett also said her 97-year-old mother now uses Siri to make phone calls. This allows you to stay socially connected even when the Phone app can’t track where you are on your iPhone’s screen.
The idea of a voice assistant that could reconnect my dad to the online world is appealing. I wish I had the tools to be able to connect in the way that once brought him joy. The need for such solutions will only increase: Americans, on average, are getting both. older And we will increasingly rely on technology to communicate. Oldest Americans, who are most likely to experience cognitive decline, started using social media later in life, and nearly half of people over 65 still use social media. I’m doing it. Social media is an integral part of how young people connect. If the inherent loneliness of forgetting how to use social media is already evident, what will happen when an entire generation of power users reaches adulthood?
