A fun, active and sociable life on display – nursing home presentations on Instagram

Datos Bibliográficos

ID11201503
AutoresElisabeth Carlstedt (0000-0002-2337-4609, Lund University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2019
Volumen39
Número9
Páginas2109-2132
Fecha de publicación2019-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAgeing and Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0144-686X • E-ISSN: 1469-1779
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0144686x18000454
OpenAlexW2887371470
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas32

Swedish nursing homes’ use of Instagram has increased vastly in the past few years. Instagram is understood as a means to manage the image they wish to mediate to the public. This article examines what is displayed in the nursing homes’ Instagram accounts, and what kind of reality is thereby constructed. The data consist of 338 Instagram images from four nursing homes’ Instagram accounts. It is found that nursing home life is primarily depicted on Instagram as active, sociable and fun, with informal, friendly relations between staff and residents, and residents able to continue to live as before, if not better, and to interact with surrounding society. Frailty, boredom, loneliness and death were absent from the data, as were mundane care activities. The article concludes that the presentations in the Instagram accounts challenge the traditional idea of nursing homes as total institutions, and the decline and loss associated with living in such institutions; however, there is a risk that these idyllic presentations conceal the inherent problems of nursing home life

Boredom · Loneliness · Nursing homes · Sociology · Wish · Geriatric Care and Nursing Homes · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Medicine · Nursing · Psychology · Social Psychology · Gerontology