Public Interest in Research on Aging: Analysis of Altmetric Attention Scores Over 5 Years.

This study pinpoints the areas in gerontological research that have commanded the most public attention as scored by Altmetric. We collected 12,740 outputs published in gerontological journals over 5 years from 2017 to 2022. Next, we identified the top 5% of outputs with the highest Altmetric Attention Scores.

Social media discourse on ageism, sexism, and racism: Analysis of 150 million tweets over 15 years.

Background: Ageism is a major but oft-overlooked social determinant of health. In fact, it is widely accepted among scholars that ageism is one of the least acknowledged forms of inequality, although few empirical attempts have been made to substantiate this claim. This is the first study that quantifies the amount of discourse dedicated to ageism, sexism, and racism on Twitter.

Questions About Aging and Later Life on Quora.

Background And Objectives: Gerontologists have yet to explore the types of questions individuals have about later life. Analyzing questions offers a unique perspective on how individuals make sense of age-related issues. Specifically, questions require people to articulate specific inquiries or doubts, thus providing an unfiltered glimpse into the public's concerns and priorities vis-à-vis aging.

Advocating for Older Adults in the Age of Social Media: Strategies to Achieve Peak Engagement on Twitter.

Background: Over the last decade, many organizations dedicated to serving the needs and interests of older adults have turned to social media platforms, such as Twitter, subsequently rebranded X, to improve the visibility of age-related issues. However, notwithstanding their growing digital presence and participation, minimal attention has been paid to the use of social media among these advocacy groups. To achieve policy change, advocacy organizations must first be able to engage and mobilize audiences.

#ProtectOurElders: Analysis of Tweets About Older Asian Americans and Anti-Asian Sentiments During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background: A silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic is that it cast a spotlight on a long-underserved group. The barrage of attacks against older Asian Americans during the crisis galvanized society into assisting them in various ways. On Twitter, now known as X, support for them coalesced around the hashtag #ProtectOurElders.

Youth is Prized in Medicine, Old Age is Valued in Law: Analysis of Media Narratives Over 200 Years.

Background: This is the first study to explore how age has influenced depictions of doctors and lawyers in the media over the course of 210 years, from 1810 to 2019. The media represents a significant platform for examining age stereotypes and possesses tremendous power to shape public opinion. Insights could be used to improve depictions of older professionals in the media.

Does Age Matter? Tweets About Gerontocracy in the United States.

Objectives: Discussions on the political scene in the United States have been accompanied by the notion that the country has morphed into a gerontocracy, a system of governance where power is wielded predominantly by older individuals. With rising life expectancy, more as well as older candidates are likely to run for and stay in office. This study analyzes perceptions regarding the older political leadership of the United States.

Reframing Aging: Foregrounding Familial and Occupational Roles of Older Adults is Linked to Decreased Ageism Over Two Centuries.

As older individuals play instrumental roles in supporting their families and contributing to their workplaces, it is essential to understand how society perceives them in relation to these social roles. This study compares age-based (e.g.

Videos about older adults on TikTok.

Besides being one of the fastest growing platforms since entering the social media fray in 2016, TikTok is notably monopolized by teenagers, which makes it a veritable source of information not to be overlooked by gerontologists. Currently, most studies regarding age stereotypes on social media have examined content on Twitter and Facebook. Our study explores how older adults are portrayed on TikTok and the factors associated with these portrayals.

Innovations for an Aging Society through the Lens of Patent Data.

Background And Objectives: An aging population creates fertile ground for devising innovations for older adults. By using patents as a proxy for inventive activity, this study sets the stage for understanding the latest innovations being designed for the older population. Insights will pave the way for a better understanding of inventions that could render society more age-friendly on the innovation front.

Portrayals of older adults in over 3000 films around the world.

Background: Presently, most film analyses related to older adults are peculiar to American cinema. However, film industries outside the United States are influential in their own right. As ageism is a pan-cultural phenomenon, it is important to explore filmic representations of older persons globally.

Impact of Old Age on an Occupation's Image Over 210 Years: An Age Premium for Doctors, Lawyers, and Soldiers.

As older adults continue to contribute to the labor force, it is critical that perceptions of them reflect these contributions. We explore whether portraying older adults based on their occupational roles instead of their age is linked to more positive sentiments and test the possibility of an age premium. We created the largest historical corpus of American English-a 600-million-word dataset with over 150,000 texts-spanning 210 years (1810-2019).

Granfluencers on TikTok: Factors linked to positive self-portrayals of older adults on social media.

Lately, there have been news reports on the rise of older content creators on various social media outlets. However, while journalists have picked up on this topic, scholars have been slow to accord it any attention. Our study delves into this topic and looks at how older TikTokers' self-perceptions of aging are expressed in their videos.

Age Advocacy on Twitter Over 12 Years.

Background And Objectives: Discussions on age-related issues have begun taking place in earnest, but exactly what dominates public consciousness about these issues is a topic that has yet to kindle scholarly attention. This study analyzes tweets uploaded by age advocacy organizations that have attracted the highest levels of engagement on Twitter.

Research Design And Methods: We collected 403,426 tweets from 53 accounts.

Ageism on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 crisis has sparked a resurgence of scholarly interest in the issue of ageism. Whether the outbreak thwarts or facilitates efforts to combat ageism hinges upon public sentiments toward the older demographic. This study aims to explore discourse surrounding older adults by analyzing 183,179 related tweets posted during the COVID-19 pandemic from February to December 2020.

A playbook for effective age advocacy on Twitter.

Background: Central to raising awareness of ageism are advocacy organizations dedicated to serving the needs and interests of older adults. Although many of these organizations have cultivated an online presence, inquiry into the effectiveness of age advocacy work on social media remains an untapped area. Our foray into this topic explores how different tweet features predict the level of engagement of posts uploaded by age advocacy organizations on Twitter.

Not Too Old for TikTok: How Older Adults Are Reframing Aging.

Background And Objectives: Although reputed for being the virtual playground of teenagers, TikTok has since made its way to older adults, some of whom have become content creators with millions of followers. Despite their immense sway over audiences, as well as their potential to reconfigure socially constructed notions of aging, these older TikTok personalities have been given scant attention in gerontological literature. We fill this gap by exploring how older adults use TikTok to engage in discourses on old age.

Hostility Toward Baby Boomers on TikTok.

Background And Objectives: The recent entry of the hashtag #OkBoomer into social media vernacular underscores the collective frustration of younger people with a group whose views they find increasingly incompatible with theirs. Most social media analyses in gerontology focus on the content on Twitter and Facebook, with content on TikTok virtually unexplored. Given the burgeoning popularity of TikTok among younger people, we assess the content of TikTok videos with the hashtags #OkBoomer or #Boomer to distill the undercurrents of hostility expressed by younger people toward Baby Boomers.

Societal Narratives on Caregivers in Asia.

Although there has been an increase in awareness of the struggles experienced by caregivers, discourse on caregiving remains confined mostly to academia, policy circles or the family unit. There have been suggestions that public discourse on informal caregiving dwells overwhelmingly on the outsize toll it takes on the health of caregivers. However, few studies have examined societal narratives on caregivers-a gap our study aims to fill.

Reframing aging during COVID-19: Familial role-based framing of older adults linked to decreased ageism.

Background: Contributions of older adults amid the COVID-19 pandemic have been eclipsed by discourse positioning them as an at-risk population. We assess whether age-based framing (e.g.

Role-Based Framing of Older Adults Linked to Decreased Ageism Over 210 Years: Evidence From a 600-Million-Word Historical Corpus.

Background And Objectives: Older adults are exhibiting greater diversity in their aging trajectories. This has led to movements by the World Health Organization and AARP to reframe aging. We compare role-based framing and age-based framing of older adults over 210 years-a time span beyond the reach of traditional methods-and elucidate their respective sentiments and narratives.

Societal perceptions of caregivers linked to culture across 20 countries: Evidence from a 10-billion-word database.

Caregivers play an indispensable role in society. In 2017, 41 million family caregivers in the United States provided approximately 34 billion hours of care to their aging parents, spouses, partners and friends. The estimated economic value of their unpaid contributions amounted to $470 billion.