How Older Adults Use Online Videos for Learning

Abstract

Online videos are a promising medium for older adults to learn. Yet, few studies have investigated what, how, and why they learn through online videos. In this study, we investigated older adults’ motivation, watching patterns, and difficulties in using online videos for learning by (1) running interviews with 13 older adults and (2) analyzing large-scale video event logs (N=41.8M) from a Korean Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) platform. Our results show that older adults (1) are motivated to learn practical topics, leading to less consumption of STEM domains than non-older adults, (2) watch videos with less interaction and watch a larger portion of a single video compared to non-older adults, and (3) face various difficulties (e.g., inconvenience arisen due to their unfamiliarity with technologies) that limit their learning through online videos. Based on the findings, we propose design guidelines for online videos and platforms targeted to support older adults’ learning.