We came across some interesting info recently on age and Internet use.
The under-30 crowd still dominates most categories on the Web, but older Americans are showing growth in some key areas of the Internet.
According to Hitwise.com, the 55+ age group has nearly doubled its presence on social networking sites in the last two years. From January 2006 to January 2008, the percentage of users age 55+ on social networking sites nearly doubled, from 6% to 11%. Meanwhile, the percentage of social networkers aged 18-24 dropped from 37% to 27%.
Facebook has seen big gains among older users, too. According to Forrester Research via David Erickson, the percentage of Facebook users age 35+ grew from 36% to 45% from fall ’06 to fall ’07.
During that same time, the percentage of Facebook users aged 18-24 dropped from 
35% to 23%.
That means there are now twice as many 35+ Facebook users as there are college-age users, the group for which the site was originally developed.
A caveat, however: Social networking sites as a whole have lost Internet market share in the last year. Social networking peaked in June 2007, when social network visits accounted for 9% of overall Web traffic, according to Hitwise.
By February ‘08, social networking’s Web traffic share had dropped to 5.9%. Hitwise blames a number of factors, including a backlash against advertising and consumer weariness with too many networking-related activities (friend requests, notifications, etc.).
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May 23rd, 2008 - 8:41 am
“That means there are now twice as many 35+ Facebook users as there are college-age users, the group for which the site was originally developed.”
Sure, but I’d love to see some research into the *levels of activity* of the people in these different age groups. That’s not a criticism of the blogger here, of course, but that’s what would be truly significant and compelling.
May 23rd, 2008 - 12:07 pm
Four years ago I was waiting in line to board an airplane in Florida for the Twin Cities. The flight was full of snowbirds returning to Minnesota for the spring and summer and I was caught behind a knot of 80+ year olds - walkers and wheelchairs much in evidence - who lived near one another in FL but in various locales in MN. The conversation was all about exchanging e-mail addresses.
More recently, my father - who is in his mid-70s with distinctively Luddite tendencies (ironic for a guy who was a physics major, an engineer and a patent lawyer) - suffered a lightning strike near his house that knocked out his phone, cable and internet for 3 days. Much to my surprise, because he had resisted getting a computer and then further resisted getting broadband, my father claimed to miss most the internet. “It’s lonely without it.”
A universal tool for sure.
Austin
May 28th, 2008 - 1:25 pm
Mike, you’re absolutely right — some measure of levels of activity would make it much more pertinent.
I have a Facebook page, for example, yet I really haven’t gotten into the groove of using it more than once a week or so. It has not become the principal tool for organizing my online life.
As for your thought, Jon, I really can’t foresee going without broadband ever again in my life unless something drastic happens.
Just last night I was sitting around, looking at YouTube clips of “At Last the 1948 Show,” an obscure British comedy show from the ’60s that gave John Cleese and Graham Chapman their first pre-Monty Python TV exposure. What did I do without that?
And yet I still read books and newspapers. Will the Baby Boomers and Xers be the last generations to embrace both print and digital?