Abstract
Objectives
In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) a pandemic. High morbidity and mortality rates of COVID‐19 have been observed among older adults, and this has been widely reported in both mainstream and social media. The objective of this study was to analyze tweets related to COVID‐19 and older adults, and to identify ageist content.
Design and settings.
We obtained a representative sample of original tweets posted between March 12 and March 21, 2020, containing the keywords “elderly”, “older”, and/or “boomer” plus the hashtags “#COVID19” and/or “#coronavirus”.
Measurements.
We identified the type of user and number of followers for each account. Tweets were classified by three raters as: 1) informative; 2) personal accounts; 3) personal opinions; 4) advice seeking; 5) jokes; and 6) miscellaneous. Potentially offensive content, as well as that downplaying the severity of COVID‐19 because it mostly affects older adults, was identified.
Results
18,128 tweets were obtained, of which a random sample of 351 was analyzed. Most accounts (91.7%) belonged to individuals. The most common types of tweets were personal opinions (31.9%), followed by informative tweets (29.6%), jokes/ridicule (14.3%), and personal accounts (13.4%). Seventy‐seven tweets (21.9%) likely intended to ridicule or offend someone, while 21.1% had content which implied that the life of older adults was less valuable, or downplayed the relevance of COVID‐19.
Conclusions
Most COVID‐19 and older adults‐related tweets contained personal opinions, personal accounts, and jokes. Almost a quarter of analyzed tweets had ageist or potentially offensive content towards older adults.
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from Wiley: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society: Table of Contents https://ift.tt/3d2u5ch
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