Leveraging social media to facilitate intergenerational learning: Bridging digital immigrants with digital natives

Abstract

Intergeneration learning (IGL), which is viewed as one form of lifelong learning involving the transfer of knowledge and skills across generations, can be conducive for us to deal with ageing population. Our objective is to examine how social media can promote IGL process, reinforcing the relationship bonds and cooperation between digital immigrants and digital natives, and to enhance the digital skills and media literacy of older generation. Compared with the traditional IGL concepts, we argue that the new paradigm of IGL should focus on ICT-enabled communication and collaboration. According to the characteristics of IGL and our objectives, we plan to employ the action research to find out what kind of knowledge and skills will be exchanged, and what dynamics will have effects on the participation, communication, and collaboration between generations. The workshops, online platforms and immersive situational learning are the three practical activities in our further research design.