The use of social networks in Brazil has been increasing on different groups of people. Although the high concentration of users are in the 20-40 years-old group there is an expansion in the group of people over 50 years which use social networks. These different groups have their own needs during the interaction with different social networks. The goal of this work is to present the results of a survey on the use of Facebook as an entertainment tool by older users in Brazil. The research shows that although most users adopt the social network for more than one hour a day, some of them still experience difficulties during its use and wish for new ways of interacting with the tool. The exploratory study outcomes allowed us to draw the personas for the Brazilian scenario. From this survey, were identified and defined the main personas, aiming at an efficient representation of the group studied. The survey showed us that although the majority of users had mobile devices and used for daily activities, some of them still face difficulties on handling them.

1. CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
Interaction With Mobile Devices on Social Networks by
Elderly People: A Survey in Brazil with Facebook
Ricardo R. Leme, Anderson R. Amaral and Luciana A. M. Zaina
LERIS-Laboratory of Studies in Networks, Innovation and Software
www.leris.sor. ufscar.br
Federal University of São Carlos - Sorocaba, Brazil
rleme@ufscar.br, anderson.amaral@etec.sp.gov.br and lzaina@ufscar.br
Available in: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6965103
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay

2. Agenda
1.Introduction
2.Motivation
3.Exploratory Survey
4.Identification and Definition of
Personas
5.Conclusion
CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay

3. Introduction: Elderly People and Mobile Devices
According to the United Nations [1], there are currently
nearly 900 million people aged 60 or more in the world.
In Brazil, this growth is no different. According to the
2010 Census prepared by IBGE (Brazilian Institute
of Geography and Statistics), the population aged 60
or older, which was 4.8 % in 1991, came to 5.9 % in
2000 and reached 7.4 % in 2010.
CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay

4. Growth of the elderly population in the world and
in Brazil
Fonte: IBGE (2010)
900
2400
4,8%
5,9%
7,4%
9,2%
Population of elderly in the world
Reference: UN (2010)
Reference: IBGE (2010)
Participation in % of the
population of elderly in Brazil
CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay

5. Social Networks and Elderly Users in Brazil
Reference: Social Bakers, 2013
Currently accounts is only 1.2% of the
population.
But in absolute numbers are more than
700,000 users!
For 2020, the forecast is 2.8 million users
are connected to social networks.
CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay

6. The purpose of this article is to identify the
characteristics of the users of old age and collect the
main forms of use, difficulties and facilities in view of
this group of users. The identification will be obtained
through an exploratory study on the interaction of this
group of Facebook users with mobile devices in Brazil.
From this survey, we identified and defined the main
personas interaction, aiming at an efficient
representation of the group studied. As a contribution,
it is hoped that this demonstrates for developers of
applications for mobile devices, the need to design
specific forms of interaction for users of old age.
CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay

7. Exploratory Survey
Through the social networking site Facebook, an
explanatory message was posted on the research and
inviting the administrators of 17 groups of elderly in
different cities in Brazil to publish the link of the
research groups of closed social network.
The link to the questionnaire has been accessed
297 times and got a total of 263 responses.
CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay

8. Exploratory Survey
CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay

9. Exploratory Survey
CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay

10. Exploratory Survey
The users were asked about the main difficulties in the
use of Facebook (more than one option could have
been selected). The highlight was the difficulty of
inserting a picture, where 40% of interviewed users
was considered difficult or very difficult, while 48%
mentioned that inserting a video it is very difficult.
CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay

11. Exploratory Survey
CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay

12. Aiming to raise new possibilities of development for
mobile devices, there were three questions, in which the
subject can respond if ”not would be interested”, ”would
some interest” or ”Had a lot of interest” in each item.
CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay

13. Persona
The persona is defined as a fictional character, a
hypothetical model of a group of real users, created to
describe a typical user [14][15].
The extraction of information from the database of
users was performed using datamining software open-
source Weka [20].
With this analysis, we reached at three personas
featuring the group studied.
CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay

14. Persona
CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay

15. Conclusion
From this study, it is clear that an application of global
reach such as social networks or solutions of e-commerce cannot
consider, for example, only users of a certain age, because the
interests and needs of each band is totally different, as was found in
accordance with the personas raised.
The research showed that, beyond the limitations of motor,
cognitive or perceptual common users of old age, there are other
obstacles in the use of mobile devices in the user group of seniors.
The difficulty in performing operations theoretically simple as
reading a text or click a picture, suggest the need for targeted
approaches to the public studied.
CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay

16. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to thank Centro Paula Souza and the
State Government of Sao Paulo for the financial
support to this study.
CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay

17. Thank you!
rleme@ufscar.br,
anderson.amaral@etec.sp.gov.br and
lzaina@ufscar.br
CLEI 2014 - XL Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informática
September 15 - 19, 2014 - Montevideo, Uruguay