Illustrations of “Old People”

Nowadays, when you browse Douyin, you often see elderly people sharing interesting stories about their daily lives. What is the meaning of their sharing? Are there any disadvantages to being addicted to Douyin? The author interviewed several "elderly Douyin users" to give the answers. Let's take a look!

Late at night, the lights in the room were dimmed, but Grandma Chen on the bed was still full of energy.

Wearing reading glasses, she squinted her eyes and stared at the screen of her mobile phone intently, sliding her fingers up and down deftly, and giggling from time to time. This is not the first time that Grandma Chen has explored the world of Douyin, but her daily "bedtime ritual".

As time passed, fatigue and sleepiness swept over her. Grandma Chen's eyelids gradually became heavy, and she fell asleep unconsciously. The phone was still lying next to her, repeatedly playing the last video - in her description, she often fell asleep while watching it.

Nowadays, "Internet-addicted elderly people" are also like young people, working late into the night to watch short videos. They once filled the spiritual emptiness of young people, but now they have penetrated into the lonely world of the elderly and become their happy utopia. Data released by the China Business Industry Research Institute shows that more and more middle-aged and elderly users are starting to settle in Douyin. Currently, users over 50 years old on Douyin account for about 8% of the total users.

There are two main reasons why middle-aged and elderly people are open to short videos as a form of entertainment. First, more and more middle-aged and elderly people are starting to use smartphones. Second, short videos have a lower threshold than text and pictures, and middle-aged and elderly people can get more intensive and sensory fresh information here. This is exactly the same reason why short videos occupied the time of young people a few years ago.

Hedgehog Commune recently started a dialogue with several "senior Douyin users", hoping to get closer to the short video world of the elderly through them.

1. What the elderly seek on TikTok

Grandma Chen from Beijing is 76 years old this year. She is an absolute "TikTok fan" and spends at least three hours on TikTok every day. She likes to watch people singing and dancing on TikTok, and also likes to watch videos of small animals.

The elderly are just as eager to learn new things as the young. When she heard about Douyin, she couldn't help but take out her phone and smoothly completed a set of likes and follows. After finishing, she didn't forget to share with Hedgehog Commune: "Oh my! I once saw a dog that could go to the street to buy vegetables by itself! Not only could it choose vegetables, but it could also bargain with the boss. It's so smart!"

Swiping the screen up and down is a very simple operation, but shooting and publishing is much more complicated.

So far, Grandma Chen has only learned how to watch short videos, but she doesn’t know how to shoot them. But there are many elderly short video creators in the community, who have their own content ecosystem, in which they record their daily lives and make friends with the elderly.

The piano music stopped abruptly, and Lihua's "morning warm-up exercise" ended. She took her phone off the selfie stick and prepared to edit and post it on TikTok. "My daughter learned piano when she was young, but now she has no time to play because she is working. The piano is alone in the corner. I couldn't bear it, so I wanted to try it myself."

At first, Lihua bought a teaching book and taught herself, but she always had difficulty coordinating her left and right hands and almost gave up. Later, Lihua's friend suddenly had an idea and suggested that they learn from a master online. Under professional guidance, Lihua gradually started to "get on the right track".

Photo provided by the interviewee

In addition to practicing the piano, Lihua is also very keen on running her own short video account. She has currently followed 496 bloggers and has 372 fans. She often posts videos of herself playing the piano and dancing to record her retirement life.

"I now prefer posting on TikTok to WeChat Moments. Because if you want to post the full version of a three- to five-minute video on WeChat Moments, you have to share it on WeChat Moments through the video account, which is very troublesome."

In addition, "Internet-addicted elderly people" are also important customers of e-commerce live broadcasts. At the third Douyin e-commerce ecological conference, Wei Wenwen, president of Douyin e-commerce, disclosed that Douyin e-commerce GMV (transaction volume) increased by more than 80% in the past year. The growth of e-commerce is contributed by users of all ages, and in some categories, the consumption willingness of the elderly continues to increase.

Lihua told Hedgehog Commune: "I will buy some clothes or daily necessities. Take clothes for example, I think they are not much different from what is introduced in the video. Even if the size is not suitable sometimes, many of them have shipping insurance, and returns are also very convenient. Generally, when buying clothes, I choose those with shipping insurance. If they are suitable, I will keep them. If they are not suitable, I will return them."

Star chasing is another hobby of middle-aged and elderly people in the short video community. If Weibo is the main battlefield for young people to chase stars, then Douyin and Kuaishou have become the main battlefields for middle-aged and elderly people to chase stars. It’s just that everyone is chasing different “stars”.

Among the many middle-aged and elderly idols, the most popular ones are "Xiu Cai" and "Qing Cheng Yi Xiao". Most of them simply shot some lip-syncing singing videos and easily captured the hearts of more than 10 million grandpas and aunts. "Three-seven hair, shirt, belt" is Xiu Cai's classic look, and "biting lips, raising eyebrows, shaking head" is Yi Xiao Qing Cheng's signature move.

Some netizens joked: "Every day I wait for my mother in Xiucai's account and my father in the comment section of Yixiaoqingcheng." Hedgehog Commune clicked on the comment section of Yixiaoqingcheng and found that the avatars were all uncles. Although the uncles are usually taciturn, they become eloquent in the comment section.

Image source: Tik Tok screenshot

The same is true for Xiucai’s comment section, except that the commenters have changed to infatuated old sisters.

Some people record their lives, some go shopping, and some chase stars. What middle-aged and elderly people like to do in short videos seems to be no different from those of young people, but the difference in content makes them seem to live in two worlds.

2. The downside of being addicted to short videos

Douyin was launched in September 2016. Two years later, as the number of users soared, Douyin changed its slogan to "Douyin records a beautiful life" and shifted its target audience to people of all ages. Its function also changed from entertainment to expression and sharing. Kuaishou started earlier. In 2012, Kuaishou transformed from a gif tool product to a short video community. For a long time, "See every kind of life" was the slogan of the entire product.

"Good life" and "every kind of life" naturally include the lives of the elderly.

According to the 2021 Douyin Data Report, "retirement" was recorded 7.15 million times on Douyin. The daily entertainment of the elderly has shifted from TV programs to Douyin. 98.97 million people searched for "old songs" on Douyin. The income of traditional cultural anchors increased by 101% year-on-year, and the income of folk art anchors increased by 232% year-on-year. On Kuaishou, the two topics of "retirement" and "elderly life" were played 2.23 billion times and 1.24 billion times respectively.

Grandma Chen told Hedgehog Commune: "I retired at the age of 50 and stayed at home every day. Apart from cooking, I would go downstairs for a walk. There was nothing much to do at home all day long. Later, I came into contact with TikTok, and I felt that my life became happier and more fulfilling."

According to Quest Mobile's "2022 Silver Economy Insight Report", in August 2022, the number of monthly active users of the silver population reached 297 million, a year-on-year increase of 12.5%. The average monthly usage time of the silver population on mobile active devices is 121.6 hours. In other words, this group of silver netizens spend an average of 3.92 hours a day on their mobile phones.

Another reason why Grandma Chen watches Douyin is that she doesn't want to be out of touch with the world. "I used to watch news on TV, but live news is not always available. Now I watch news on Douyin every day and learn about what is happening in different places. It feels very convenient. Douyin also presents news in videos, which is more intuitive and easier for me to understand."

Some elderly people use Douyin out of filial piety. Wang Xiu from Shaoyang, Hunan, used to be a nurse. After retirement, she took care of her elders at home. She found Douyin interesting when she was free, so she came up with the idea of ​​taking her mother-in-law and mother-in-law to shoot Douyin together. Wang Xiu used Douyin to record the daily life of her 99-year-old mother and 89-year-old mother-in-law. The simple and happy videos successfully attracted 761,000 fans, and the highest number of likes reached 1.76 million.

Photo provided by the interviewee

"I posted the videos of the two mothers on TikTok and received many blessings from netizens. I read the comments to them and they were very happy. The meaning of what I did was fulfilled."

Some elderly people have also mastered a new skill by playing Douyin, and Lihua is one of them. "I saw other people posting Douyin videos, so I asked them what they used to edit videos. They told me to use Jianying, so I downloaded it and learned by myself while watching the tutorial.

Photo provided by the interviewee

There are also times when self-study is stuck. The songs that Lihua downloaded from other platforms cannot be used in Jianying. After asking her daughter, Lihua learned that there are usage rights issues for music on different platforms. "Now I will search for the songs I like directly on Douyin, and then copy its link to Jianying, and I can use it. I only discovered this recently. Now I am a teacher for my friends around me, teaching them how to edit videos."

Lihua was not an extrovert before. After retirement, she had a lot of free time. The social cost of finding new friends was very high, and she could never meet up with old friends at the right time. After becoming addicted to short videos, she had something specific to do, and her loneliness was reduced. "If it weren't for health concerns, I could stay at home for a week!" Lihua said.

3. What the elderly need is more than just a larger font size

With the rapid development of short videos, some problems have gradually been exposed, and fake news is one of them. In order to increase their popularity and number of fans, some users deliberately create some sensational titles and content, such as "88-year-old woman gave birth to a 8.8-pound son" and "the child can call mom and dad as soon as he is born".

For older people who are not very good at distinguishing true and false information on the Internet, they may easily believe fake news and even spread it to others in their daily lives.

Grandpa Zhang told Hedgehog Commune: "I saw a news report two days ago about a man who had a comminuted fracture and then met a miracle doctor who cured him with a bowl of miracle medicine!" Hedgehog Commune asked Grandpa Zhang about the truth of this story, and he said: "Of course it's true, the man's story is very detailed."

In addition, the problem of false marketing in short videos is also very common. Advertisements for products such as "weight loss enzymes", "slimming capsules" and "slimming coffee" appear in the information flow from time to time.

For some elderly people who lack judgment, the exaggerated efficacy of products is a huge temptation. After undergoing cervical spine surgery, Grandpa Zhang was unwilling to move, which caused him to become fat and bloated. He was determined to lose weight. He happened to see an advertisement on a short video, claiming that this weight loss drug can inhibit fat absorption and restore a slim figure.

Despite some doubts, Grandpa Zhang still bought the diet pills. However, things did not go as he expected. "After taking the diet pills for a few days, I started to feel dizzy and nauseous, and later I started to have a rash. My son took me to the hospital for a check-up, and the doctor told me that the side effects of the diet pills were serious and could cause liver damage. Since then, I have never dared to buy anything casually again."

Grandpa Zhang's experience is not an isolated case. In content communities dominated by UGC, the road to information review and governance is long and arduous. Douyin and Kuaishou both have large review teams and content ecology teams to manage the compliance of platform content. However, new illegal content is always growing, and the illegal content form and the platform as the governance have been in a state of mutual tug-of-war for a long time. From breeding to governance, it is a process that needs to be repeated continuously.

With the increase of young people and the elderly among short video users, the urgency of managing negative content is becoming increasingly important for platforms.

Many short videos do not appear to violate regulations, and it is difficult to identify the problems at a glance. It is a bit like a "wolf in sheep's clothing". Although it does not violate the platform's regulations, it actually has problems such as false propaganda and vulgar content. Only a large number of reports can remove it. However, the elderly are often not familiar with the reporting function, which leads to some illegal content not being removed in time.

On March 30, Douyin's official account released the latest rules for the creation of "interpretation" works. The new rules require creators to "mark the work as an interpretation in a prominent position" when publishing fictional content to avoid misunderstanding of the work. For accounts that do not indicate the "interpretation" logo and deliberately use fake staged photos to gain traffic for improper marketing and mislead the public, the platform will impose penalties such as indefinite bans depending on the circumstances.

In addition to network security, Grandpa Zhang also suggested that Douyin could launch an elderly version of the app. "The elderly mode of Douyin is very hidden, especially for us elderly people. We can't even read the words clearly. How can we know where to set it? I have used Douyin for three years. Recently, my granddaughter came to my house and she just set up the elderly mode for me."

The current senior mode of Douyin only makes the fonts larger and the design clearer to facilitate the use of the elderly; Kuaishou also provides font size options in the system settings. After modification, the font size displayed on the page will become larger. Currently, the special mode provided by short video platforms for the elderly is still at the level of interactive display.

But the problem that elderly users encounter when "surfing" short videos is not just that they can't see the words clearly. Their children are more worried about whether the elderly will be scammed, buy inappropriate products, or become overly addicted and cause health problems.

As the base of elderly users continues to increase, how to better meet the general needs of the elderly is a difficult problem that short video platforms need to overcome.

Author: Zhang Jinglun

Source: WeChat public account "Hedgehog Commune"