One of the most well-known social media apps, Facebook gives you the ability to share updates with friends and family, post photos and videos and share links with your contacts. The social media site also has groups related to special topics that seniors can join to make new friends. A classifieds platform called Facebook Marketplace even makes the social media app a great place to advertise household items you have for sale. With robust security features, Facebook lets you control who sees what you post, protecting your personal information online.
Owned by the same company as Facebook, Instagram is a social media site dedicated to photos and videos. With just a few quick taps, you can upload videos from your tablet or phone and then edit them with tools and filters. Once you’re satisfied with how they look, post them with a caption and people can leave comments discussing them. You can also follow family, friends, local and national businesses, celebrities and public figures to see what they post and interact with their content.
Pinterest is a social media site dedicated to discovering photos, videos and articles that are of interest to you. On the site, you’ll find posts related to recipes, fashion, interior design, art, crafts and many other topics. Called pins, these posts can be organized on personal boards you create. You can also make pins of your own when you stumble upon an image, video or other online content you want to save and share.
Inspired by message boards from the early days of the internet, Reddit is a place for discussions on topics ranging from pets to politics. The social media app is home to subreddits, forums on a specific subject. You can join as many subreddits as you wish, make posts and leave comments on other people’s posts. Users can upvote posts and comments that help further the conversation, allowing them to move higher up on the page, so the best content is easy to locate as you scroll.
TikTok is an incredibly popular social media app among Gen Z and Gen Alpha, but many seniors enjoy using it, too. The site is for uploading short videos that are funny, educational or interesting. When you sign up, you tell the app some of your areas of interest and its algorithm will automatically begin playing videos that may appeal to you. As you like videos that you enjoy, the algorithm becomes better and better at showing you content you’ll love to watch. You can also post videos of your own and follow content creators to see their latest updates.
YouTube is the most well-known social media app for posting and watching videos. With the app, you can discover everything from workout programs to product reviews to how-to instructional videos. On the app, many television networks post clips from programs, news segments and special interest programming. In addition, you can buy and rent movies and TV shows and stream music from a wide range of artists right in the app. It’s also possible to upload videos of your own and choose a viewing audience to make your videos public or available only to those you share the link with.
Medium is a social media site for sharing ideas. A blog platform, it features writings from experts in a wide range of fields. With a quick search, you can discover in-depth posts related to your interests and follow writers whose work you enjoy. You’re also free to start a blog of your own to share your opinions, knowledge and wisdom with the rest of the community.
If you have a question about virtually anything, Quora likely has the answer. The social media site allows users to post questions on a seemingly endless number of topics and receive answers from the community. Once you sign up, you can also provide answers to questions and interact with other users’ comments. Tell the app your interests and it will send you notifications when people ask questions you’re likely to know the answer to. If you wish, you can also sign up for a daily digest and get a summary of top questions on your preferred topics delivered to your email inbox.
Avid readers enjoy Goodreads. After you create an account, you can rate and review books you’ve read and create lists of books you want to read in the future. You can also follow family members and friends to see what they're reading.
