Exploring Synchronous Connections between Grandchildren and Grandparents

UX Research, Qualitative Analysis
Team Members
4 HCDE Graduate Students
Project timeline
October to November 2023
Tools
Miro, Google Doc, Figma, Zoom
Background
With the effects of the digital divide and continued demographic shifts impacting various societies, it’s keen to explore and understand how technology affects communication between older adults (ages 65+) and younger generations (ages 18 to 42). By learning about the potential benefits and challenges associated with technology, our research study aims to provide insights that can inform the way technology currently affects multi-generational communication.

Some ways technology affects multi-generational communication can be understood through generational communication gaps, intergenerational understanding, and seeking to improve the overall quality of relationships between older adults and younger generations.

Purpose

Our phase 1 research explored how the digital divide affects connections between younger and older generations. In phase 2, we explore and understand grandchild to grandparent connections.

Goals

Phase 1

  • Observe and understand how the younger generation uses technology to communicate with older adults.
  • Understand the role technology plays in younger generations’ communication styles and how it affects social connectedness with older adults.

Phase 2

  • To gain a deeper understanding of the obstacles and their root causes that affect multi-generational synchronous connections.
  • To shed light on factors that contribute to a successful and resilient connection between grandchildren and grandparents.

Research Questions

Phase 1

  • What are the ways that younger generations use to communicate with older adults?

Phase 2

  • What are the existing obstacles adult grandchildren face when synchronously connecting with their grandparents?
  • What are the existing root causes of the obstacles adult grandchildren face when connecting with their grandparents?
  • What are the factors that contribute to a successful connection between adult grandchildren and grandparents?

Methods

Phase 1 - Netnography

  • The online communities that we focused on were Reddit and Quora as the Q&A format of the communities are particularly useful for the type of qualitative data we are collecting
  • gain an overall understanding of the research topic through larger datasets 
  • have the ability to narrow down and explore a specific topic in an unbiased manner from the perspective of our chosen population

Phase 2 - Interview

  • Gain a deeper understanding of the participants' experiences when connecting with their grandparents
  • Further explore the participants’ motivations towards connecting with their grandparents

Participants & Recruiting

Phase 1  NA

Phase 2

  • Participants are those who identify as an adult grandchild, who are at least 18 years old. 
  • They have built or have maintained a connection with their grandparent and connect with their grandparents synchronously.
  • Recruitment conducted through personal networks – family & friends from different walks of life.

Analysis Procedure

Phase 1

  • Conducted a preliminary analysis to understand the dataset's characteristics and established a framework for grouping similar posts by identifying common themes and patterns.
  • Labeled the clusters with keywords that describe their common themes and remained open to reorganizing and renaming groups as we discovered new connections.
  • Reviewed the affinity map and engaged in discussions regarding the meaning of each cluster and its relevance to the project's objectives.

Phase 2

  • Analyzed interview artifacts, including recordings and transcriptions. Each person reviewed 4 to 6 interview artifacts and coded in Google Doc
  • Used FigJam to track themes and directly link quotes from interviews under each theme
  • Collectively analyze the themes and identify overall connections between them

Phase 1  Findings

Finding #1: Multi-generational connectedness varies case-by-case where some connections succeed and others face challenges and preparation.

To identify how generations connect with each other, we’ve found several ways that younger generations and older adults achieve connectedness currently and how they prepare for interaction with older adults.

Evidence

“If you feel you need to carry a conversation, you could always find topics that you know interest them and research those things.” SideEyeandSigh, Reddit. I have nothing to say when visit my grandma
“Ask them for ideas of what they would like to do or talk about, my granddaughter always had suggestions, from taking a walk, or going on a scavenger hunt, or scrapbooking, we did 3 and had some of the best conversations while doing them and to this day they mean so much to her.” Rose Parise Raintree, Quora. What is the best way for Senior Citizens to communicate with their grandchildren?

Finding #2: Older adults feel most connected through synchronous communication.

We identified a pattern across our research findings that many older adults prefer phone calls and video calls over text. One of the reasons why older adults don’t prefer text is because of the “anti-personal” nature of texts. Thus, our research showed favor towards phone calls and video calls, and how FaceTime is a preferred platform for virtual connection. And some older adults have transitioned to using FaceTime. 

Evidence

“I am old and I do text. [...] However there is nothing more pleasing to hear a voice. Texting is so anti-personal. [...] When you get old, you will find out exactly why us old people love to hear your voice. It’s priceless.” Old Gal, Quora. As you’ve gotten older do you text more or less
“I’m a grandfather three times over. FaceTiming with the little ones is a highlight. In person visits are emotional gold. [...] The love I have for them is impossible to describe. I’ll miss calls when they fade as their lives take off, but I will look for ways to be connected.” notjustanytadpole, Reddit. Call your grandparents
“Getting to hang out with my grandparents doing mundane stuff [...] was still really fun. [...] we have a great relationship and I cherish those memories.” shaester16, Reddit. Bonding with grandparents

Finding #3: Despite actively seeking connection, there are still challenges both younger generations and older adults face when achieving connectedness with one another.

We have found overwhelming evidence that younger generations and older adults face challenges when communicating with each other. This extends beyond technological barriers and they are looking for solutions to overcome it. Some of the challenges include cultural differences, communication styles, language barriers, and health conditions.

Evidence

“My grandmother and I spoke mostly in charades. Her native language is Suzhou dialect; mine is English. The little Mandarin I do know is cobbled together from my parents’ respective accents, [...] making it even more difficult for nainai to understand me, on top of the extremely limited vocabulary and complete ignorance of Chinese grammar.” Jennifer Hu, Quora. What is like not being able to speak in your grandparents language
“Today [my grandma] called me for my birthday. Today she really struggled with communicating, and not just finding words, but with general coherence. It’s just heartbreaking.” roadsideweeds, Reddit. How to talk to grandma with Alzheimers
“My grandchildren live in another state, sometimes, I feel distant from my teenage grandson, with whom I was very close. I call and leave messages, and text him, but feel like I’m bothering him. How can I reconnect without becoming a pest?” Betty Moreno, Quora. How to reconnect without becoming a pest

Phase 2  Findings

We want to connect with people who love us & reciprocate the love that’s given to us.

TD

Grandchildren are willing to connect and overcome challenges with grandparents who love them because they want to reciprocate the love.

RL

But we need to highlight the importance of mutual understanding and respect.

Finding #1: Synchronous connections help bridge the physical proximity, making it possible for grandchildren & grandparents to maintain a successful connection.

P6 - “I video chat with my grandma everyday for 15 minutes because she’s the most important person to me. She is in Beijing, China and I’m in Los Angeles, California.”
P5 - “I would call them weekly because it would definitely cheer them up to hear from their grandkids.”
P1 - “She is going to miss me if I didn't give her a phone call for too long or she would say something like, ‘You didn’t call me since you are in America’. She would be jealous if I call my parents and not her.”

Finding #2: The impact of cultural & generational differences play a role in the dynamics of the grandchild to grandparent connection.

P3 - “I'd like to mention that the cultural and generational differences play a significant role in our communication. Growing up in a different cultural context and having generational disparities make it challenging to find common ground. For instance, our perspectives on family, work, and personal values differ significantly.”
P4 - “She also grew up in the Philippines so I feel like she won't be able to understand stuff that I'm explaining to her. She has gotten accustomed to the culture here after living in America for so long, but it really is more so the age difference that makes it hard for her to either understand or comprehend what I'm saying.”
P5 - “He always wanted to hear about what we were working on. But he would admit that he didn't understand, like the things that we were working on, but I think he liked to hear about what was going on in our day to day”

Finding #3: There are explicit challenges related to the lack of assistance that grandchild to grandparent connections face, and having that help is instrumental.

P1 - “I feel like the technical stuff is kind of a challenge to her. Sometimes she will accidentally flip the camera. And she didn't know how to turn it back. ”
P6 - “She gets really frustrated when the electronic devices are not working. But she doesn’t know how to fix it, she doesn't know where or who to ask or what to do because she lives by herself. ”
P5 - “ They didn't know how to use their phone that well to make a video call. And so, I think they would have our cousin or someone there to help them […] They would have to use someone else's phone to do that. So that's usually why we would have to rely on someone else to set it up”

Finding #4: Mutual understanding & respect are needed to set up a resilient & successful connection.

Scheduling & Lifestyle

P1 - “If I didn't catch her call, she would constantly give me phone calls. And I need to hang up and I say, oh granny, I'm in my class. And she'll stop […] I feel like she didn't read my text and when I was busy or something, she would just keep calling. I feel like she has a kind of anxious personality […] she is just constantly worried about me and sometimes gives me a little pressure.”
P6 - “And then, every day after her breakfast, because of the time difference, that time works out the best for the both of us, so she doesn’t have to wait all day for random calls. She doesn’t look at her iPad as often as how young people are so attached to electronic devices.”
P2 - “I'm not sure if she knows it's 13 hrs or 14 hrs difference, but she knows it's more than 10 hrs and she always called me on weekends. She knows that the time is morning in China now is night in America so she would just call me on weekends because she knows I don't have classes on weekends […] I think every time my grandma called me, my grandpa would just text me in advance so I would know if that's a good time to pick up or not and I would respond to them.”

Shared Experiences and Interests

P3 - “There's still a gap in understanding each other, possibly due to limited shared experiences and lack of time spent together [...] Shared activities and mutual updates on our daily lives would contribute to an ideal connection […] It's difficult, but perhaps finding common ground through shared activities or interests could be a starting point.”
P5 - “The other thing was he loved nature and the outdoors, so whenever I would be able to share with him stories about camping trips or something like that, he always loved to hear about those things because that's what he was very passionate about.”
P6 - “I'm a mom so she has a great-grandson, It's not just about talking to me, but seeing her great-grandchild as well […] but we share the same values and we have so much to talk about from hobbies to [...] You know, she even watches sports and she would stay up all night to watch the World Cup soccer and stuff. Everything that we talk about, it's a joy.”

Future Implications

  • For our research, we only focused on the grandchild to grandparent connection from the grandchild perspective.
  • For upcoming implications, we want to recruit grandparents who synchronously connect with their grandchildren as participants, conduct interviews, and compare the findings from phase 2 and 3 to compare the differences in their experiences related to their connection.
  • Provide research findings to design teams interested in developing products to foster better connections between grandchildren and their grandparents.
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