Episode 16 - Kelly Quinn on Social Media and Aging

e were promised that social media would make life richer, more connected, more humane. And sometimes it has. But many older adults have also experienced something else: platforms that feel harder over time, feeds drifting from friends toward ads and outrage, tools that seem to decline just as we hope they might deepen.So what’s really happening there? And what does it mean for belonging, memory, and story?I’m joined by Kelly Quinn, Clinical Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her research explores how older adults engage with social media, data-driven systems, and digital privacy, beginning not from assumptions of decline, but from lived experience and curiosity.