Analyzing elderly behavior in social media through language use

Abstract

Increasingly more elderly make use of social media in the Netherlands, being at the forefront compared to other European countries. We analyze the language use of Dutch (older) adults in Twitter in order to get insights in their behavior. Previous studies have identified several linguistic features that change as life progresses including pronouns. We don’t find this change and we claim that this might be due to the fact that the users tend to adapt to the language of the platform. This is not the case for the topics addressed since we find differences in the use of hashtags, while the elderly use hashtags mainly in relation to leisure and politics, the younger users employ them mainly in relation to their working life.