Developing social contact and participation in social activities: Seniors' experiences from a social internet-based intervention process

Objective: To explore seniors' experiences of the intervention process after participating in a social internet-based occupational therapy intervention. Method: A qualitative interview study was conducted. Twelve women and 3 men (66-87 years old), from the completed intervention study participated. The study was placed in northern Sweden. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The interviews were analyzed using the constant comparative method, and two categories with subcategories were generated in the analysis. Results: The seniors experienced a need to participate in social internet-based activities (SIBAs) due to their decline in social activities and the ever-increasing digitalization of society. In the intervention process, the seniors' experiences reflected two divergent directions. The first consisted of seniors who had experiences of being hampered in participating in the SIBAs in the intervention process. They did not completely reach their intervention goals, but they did describe increased ability to use SIBAs and increased self-reliance. The other direction of the process reflected experiences of reaching their goals in the intervention, and they developed habitual participation in SIBAs as well as increased participation in social activities outside the Internet. Conclusion: The social internet-based intervention can support seniors to overcome the obstacles that prevent them from participating in SIBAs. By participating in SIBAs, the seniors might enrich their social activities and social contacts both on the Internet and outside, if the intervention is individually targeted to meet their needs.