My grandma called me the other day and asked me if I got her invitation on “The Link.”

Confused for a second, I asked, “What’s that, grandma?”

“The Link, where I can see what you do for the “Genie!”

“Do you mean LinkedIn, grandma?”

“That’s what I said, the LinkIn.”

So my grandma is now on “The LinkIn,” better know as LinkedIn to those of you who are more social media savvy than my 75-year-old grandma, which I’m assuming is 99.9% of the people reading this post. My grandma has been a realtor for over 30 years and just started a new position at a new real estate firm. Per the request of her employer, she set up a LinkedIn account to stay “hip” in the current real estate market. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

As it turns out, senior citizens in the U.S. are the fastest growing social media adopters. This year, 43% of Americans over 65 use at least one social networking site, compared with 26% in 2010 and 1% in 2008.

Source: http://www.statista.com/topics/1164/social-networks/chart/1347/social-network-usage-in-the-us/

Personally, I think it’s great that senior citizens are adopting social media. In fact, new studies have even shown that social media can support the healthiness of older people and that “with the rise of user-friendly devices such as tablets and other web-enabled devices, older adults now engage in social media, such as online social networks, discussion boards, and online forums, more frequently.”

Learning to use Facebook has also been shown to sharpen the mental abilities of adults over 65. According to a study, older adults, after learning to use Facebook, performed about 25 percent better on memory tasks. It was also reported that being active on Facebook gave a boost to their cognitive performance and made them feel more socially connected.

While senior citizens are certainly starting to use social media on a more frequent basis, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily good at it! Here are a few social media fails, mostly by grandparents.

And I know this isn’t social media related, but it’s definitely my favorite example of older generations using technology to stay connected to the ones they love. In this video, these two grandparents sent out an adorably uncoordinated toast to their son for his wedding. Just watch!