Monday, November 29, 2010

Practicum 6- Tom

In the past week, I found two interesting sites that are aimed towards baby boomers. Although the baby boomers are not all over 65, I’m interested in the sites because they’re some of the few websites that target seniors as a group. I was reading an article about seniors and their increased presence online when I found a link to this website:

http://www.cognifit.com/

Cognifit is a service that has developed cognitive training that helps seniors postpone the effects of Alzheimer’s and dementia. A Cognifit representative gave the following quote regarding the site’s validity: “CogniFit is a scientifically validated cognitive training program, not a game," Bicknell said. " CogniFit measures and trains fourteen different skill areas and offers a comprehensive training for consumers looking for overall fitness. CogniFit’s program is designed to continually adjust to the training level that is optimal for each user, challenging (them), but no so difficult that the user abandons their training."

I’m investigating the extent to which seniors communicate on this site. I imagine there is limited communication, but it is still an interesting service.

I also found an article about a gaming site that is aimed toward baby boomers.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/11/social-gaming-site-for-baby-boomers.html

This article discusses a gaming site (Winster.com) geared toward seniors. The site has a chat feature so that seniors with limited mobility can communicate in a virtual world. Winster offers a variety of small prizes for members, and the chat feature is an opportunity for seniors to make friends.

I’m considering joining this site to see how the chat feature works. I’m curious whether people will attempt to chat with me or if I’ll have to go out of my way to find “friends”. This should be an interesting community, and I’ll report next week about what I’m finding.

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2 comments:

  1. Allison HahnNovember 30, 2010 at 1:40 PM

    I don't know the exact focuses of your project and paper, but an interesting topic to look at may be seniors on Facebook. I have one grandfather and his significant other on Facebook who know what they are doing for the most part and another grandmother who knows nothing about the site but has a profile. My grandfather is in the advertising business so he uses it to connect with clients and such. Also, I'm sure they've connected with old high school and college friends to rekindle relationships. I feel like these people are trying to stay hip and young as opposed to those who are on the Alzheimer's website or thing like that that you mention in this post. Just a thought.
    -Allison

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  2. Tom CarrDecember 3, 2010 at 2:30 PM

    Thanks for the feedback! I'm just looking at seniors and what they do online. I haven't found too many senior communities so I'm just seeing what types of things they do online. While facebook is a good suggestion, I really want to find places where seniors communicate publicly. Since facebook is so private, I can't really see what they're doing. At this point, I'm just noting interesting articles/sites I find. I'm not too concentrated on one thing. I have checked out some interesting statistics about seniors online, and you're right, I could look into specifics about seniors on facebook. Thanks for the comment!

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