The use of social media is widespread in current communication practices; however, the ethical implications of these applications on vulnerable populations, particularly older adults, are under-researched. Although the number of older adults participating in digital processes is increasing, many remain vulnerable due to lower digital literacy and inadequate protection of these platforms. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the ethical issues older adults face to address their experiences and better the design of social media platforms. As a step in this direction, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 19 adults aged 65 to 90. We focused the interviews on their ethical concerns about social media platforms and on the solutions they propose to alleviate these concerns. We used open coding to identify meaningful patterns in their answers. Participants raised serious ethical concerns about privacy, misinformation, addiction, and censorship. Such worries were generally associated with the difficulty of understanding platforms’ practices and the inability to control their digital experience. Numerous participants requested that communication be made more explicit, transparent and advocate policy-driven initiatives from governments that promote safer and more ethical digital spaces.

@inproceedings{paperbot11998,
  title = {Scrolling with Caution: Perceptions of Older Adults on Ethical Issues in Social Media},
  author = {Hans Hassan Katib and Sree Pragnya Kota and Emitzá Guzmán},
  booktitle = {ICSE},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1145/3786581.3786925}
}