Why it’s not only young people who are at risk on social media

From posting Google searches in Facebook posts to accidentally sharing bank account details on Twitter, some older people are having a tough time online, writes Ann Wason Moore.

With all of this talk of banning social media for kids, we might be missing a trick.

Forget about the under-16s, what about the over-70s?

Personally, my greatest technological concern is not my teens, although they do cause plenty of grief, but my mother.

While I have to physically wrest the phone from my children’s sneaky little hands so they will actually get ready for school on time, that’s a walk in the park compared to their grandmother.

God bless her 84-year-old heart, but an iPhone is a weapon of mass destruction in this woman’s hands … and the target is my peace of mind.

But first, let me give Mum her flowers.

She lives independently, she plays croquet, she’s learning guitar, she took Italian lessons, she’s been in multiple choirs and she does, theoretically, operate an iPhone, iPad, MacBook, Apple Watch and AirPods.

She still drives and she also regularly walks long distances around the neighbourhood and beyond … she’s pretty incredible.

That being said, I would say I receive a distress tech call about three to five times a week.

Or sometimes I call her and it causes a crisis. Like the time she asked why I called her watch.

But sometimes it’s a sneak attack, she doesn’t even know there is a problem until I accidentally find it.

Like the time I saw she had just posted her Google search as a Facebook update. And as I scrolled through her feed, I discovered that was not the first time.

Or the fact that my son secretly updated her Instagram bio to read ‘I’m a criminal gangsta’ and she is yet to notice.

Look, for her age she handles tech remarkably well … but compared to anyone under 65, not so much.

It sometimes feels like a part-time job managing my mother’s social media accounts … this is a whole different definition of ‘momager’.

An older woman working on a laptop from home.

But I know I’m not alone.

As a 48-year-old Gen Xer, I am firmly in the sandwich generation – kids squeezing me on one end, parents on the other. And nowhere is this squeeze more suffocating than when it comes to social media.

There’s even a technical term for this – the Digital Sandwich Generation. Specifically, adults who are the computer/network/technical ‘specialist’ in the family and who have a vested interest in keeping people safe.

On the one hand I’m making sure no one is sending or receiving nudes in the house, on the other I’m making sure older family members are not tweeting their bank details.

My poor Mum has already been the subject of one such scam – and she’s not alone. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has warned of a huge spike in social media scams targeting older people, with those aged over 65 recording the highest losses of any age group.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced that the government intends to introduce legislation to enforce a minimum age on children accessing social media. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard.

While I’m not entirely sure about Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s announcement that the government intends to introduce legislation to enforce a minimum age on children accessing social media, I certainly acknowledge that we need more guard rails.

Just like driving a car, there is surely a time when they are too young to take control of this potentially dangerous vehicle. But they also need to be exposed, to a degree, as to how it all works. Essentially, they need to be passengers.

Then there should be lessons and tests so we can feel confident they’re ready to get behind the wheel, or the screen.

Continuing this analogy, there is a strong argument that older drivers should have refresher courses or even undertake practical tests to ensure they are still safe drivers.

Maybe this would be useful for our seniors on social media as well?

The only problem is … guess who ends up teaching both ends of this social media student spectrum? The Sandwichers.

We may not be the Me Generation, but we’re certainly the Meat in the Middle Generation.

Originally published as Why it’s not only young people who are at risk on social media