Middle-aged and elderly people use short video reports: Tik Tok is a new tool for social participation of the elderly (the nickname of Tik Tok for middle-aged and elderly people).

What can short videos do for the elderly to better integrate into the digital society? On August 26th, the Population and Development Research Center of China Renmin University and Tik Tok jointly released the Survey Report on the Use of Short Video by Middle-aged and Old People. According to the report, short video applications such as Tik Tok provide contemporary elderly people with new tools to acquire knowledge, socialize and show themselves, strengthen their social ties and enhance their social adaptation and social participation after leaving the labor market.

According to the data of the seventh national census, the population aged 60 and over in China has reached 260 million, accounting for 18.7% of the total population, and the scale of the elderly population has been growing rapidly. At the same time, according to the 45th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China, the number of Internet users in China has exceeded 900 million. From 20 10 to 2020, the number of elderly netizens aged 60 and above will increase from 8.67 million to 60.54 million, and the proportion of elderly netizens in the elderly population will increase from 4.9% to 23.8%. According to the report, the process of population aging in China is accompanied by the rapid development of digitalization and informatization, and the service and promotion of digital products cannot be ignored in actively responding to population aging.

The report team interviewed 1 150 middle-aged and elderly people in 28 provinces. Among the middle-aged and elderly people interviewed, more than 60% think that short videos "add fun to their lives", about 50% think that short videos help them "keep abreast of current events" and nearly 25% think that short videos are convenient for them to "pay attention to and interact with friends".

Zhai Zhenwu, president of the China Population Society and director of the Population and Development Research Center of Renmin University of China, believes that retired people generally face problems such as the disappearance of major social roles related to work, the narrowing of social networks, the decline of social participation, and the decline of life richness and happiness. For the elderly individuals, the core of "active aging" is "participation". Tik Tok and other short video products have lowered the threshold for the elderly to maintain social contact. The elderly can learn about social dynamics, strengthen communication with their children and give full play to their expertise through Tik Tok, which is a new form of social participation of the contemporary elderly.

The report summarizes the specific types of short video to enhance the social participation of the elderly: as a tool for the elderly to keep in touch with family and friends, short video strengthens the intergenerational ties of the elderly, reduces their loneliness and serves their mental health; As a channel for the elderly to obtain information, short videos meet their spiritual needs, help them understand social changes and promote their social integration and adaptation. As a platform for the elderly to show their skills and share knowledge, short videos can help them realize their self-identity beyond their original occupations.

The report emphasizes that both the information input through short videos for happiness and understanding of the world, and the short video creation of content output for self-display and identification are meeting the high-level needs of Maslow's five human needs, namely, the social needs, respect needs and self-realization needs of the elderly. Therefore, no matter from the perspective of the elderly individuals or groups, short video products such as Tik Tok should be properly used to expand the ways to achieve active aging.

The report also pointed out that many middle-aged and elderly people still have difficulties in the use of digital products and awareness of network security. Governments, communities, families, enterprises and other sectors of society should help middle-aged and elderly people face the digital dilemma and improve their digital literacy. It is worth noting that the survey results in the report show that more than half of the middle-aged and elderly people will choose their children for help when they encounter digital difficulties, and the younger generation should become the main group to help the middle-aged and elderly people solve digital difficulties.

At the same time, short video platform, as a new tool for social participation of the elderly, should also aim at "being able to use", "being easy to use" and "being useful" for the elderly to create an elderly-friendly product. Taking Tik Tok as an example, the "age-appropriate" optimization of this product is mainly carried out from the aspects of product design, content construction and user service.

According to Johnny, the head of Tik Tok's old-age friendship project, in terms of product functions, Tik Tok has launched the elderly model, giving priority to solving the problem that elderly users can't see clearly and can't use it; At the same time, the time reminder and management functions are gradually upgraded to help elderly users manage time. In terms of content security, Tik Tok has strengthened the auditing standards for elderly content, upgraded the response level of private messages to potential risks, severely cracked down on illegal advertisements, and strived to create a safe content environment for elderly users; In creating a content ecosystem, Tik Tok continues to encourage the creation of aging content and increase the proportion of high-quality content pools. By April of 20021year, Tik Tok's creators over 60 years old had created more than 600 million videos, including style display, parent-child interaction, creative special effects, beautiful food, animal and plant protection, etc., and were praised more than 40 billion times.

In terms of user service, Tik Tok has opened an "old friend hotline", with full-time manual customer service to answer questions from elderly users. At the beginning of this year, Tik Tok also launched the "Silver Shining Project", and cooperated with academia, media, communities and universities for the elderly to study and discuss the existing problems and solutions around the core topic of "the digital gap faced by the elderly", so as to coordinate the resources of all parties, help build an elderly-friendly digital society, and serve the strategy of actively coping with the aging population.

Based on this plan, the Chinese Population Society and Tik Tok initiated the establishment of the "Silver Hair Expert Advisory Group". Wu Cangping, the pioneer and founder of demography and gerontology in China, is the "invited chief expert". At present, 13 experts in demography, sociology, psychology and economics have joined the advisory group. Du Peng, a member of the advisory group, vice-president of China Renmin University and director of the Institute of Gerontology, said that young platforms like Tik Tok actively launch targeted plans to serve the digital life of the elderly, which represents the young generation's active participation in coping with the aging population and is worth promoting and encouraging.