While social media use has grown dramatically across all age groups, older users have been especially enthusiastic over the past year about embracing new networking tools. Social networking use among internet users ages 50 and older nearly doubled—from 22% in April 2009 to 42% in May 2010.
+ Between April 2009 and May 2010, social networking use among internet users ages 50-64 grew by 88%--from 25% to 47%.
+ During the same period, use among those ages 65 and older grew 100%--from 13% to 26%.
+ By comparison, social networking use among users ages 18-29 grew by 13%—from 76% to 86%
“Young adults continue to be the heaviest users of social media, but their growth pales in comparison with recent gains made by older users,” explains Mary Madden, Senior Research Specialist and author of the report. “Email is still the primary way that older users maintain contact with friends, families and colleagues, but many older users now rely on social network platforms to help manage their daily communications.”
+ One in five (20%) online adults ages 50-64 say they use social networking sites on a typical day, up from 10% one year ago.
+ Among adults ages 65 and older, 13% log on to social networking sites on a typical day, compared with just 4% who did so in 2009.
At the same time, the use of status update services like Twitter has also grown—particularly among those ages 50-64. One in ten internet users ages 50 and older now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves or see updates about others.
E-Mail Still Leads By a Lot and News Gathering
While email may be falling out of favor with today’s teenagers, older adults still rely on it heavily as an essential tool for their daily communications. Overall, 92% of those ages 50-64 and 89% of those ages 65 and older send or read email and more than half of each group exchanges email messages on a typical day. Online news gathering also ranks highly in the daily media habits of older adults; 76% of internet users ages 50-64 get news online, and 42% do so on a typical day. Among internet users ages 65 and older, 62% look for news online and 34% do so on a typical day.
So Why are the Numbers Growing?
First, our research shows that social networking users are much more likely to reconnect with people from their past, and these renewed connections can provide a powerful support network when people near retirement or embark on a new career.
Second, older adults are more likely to be living with a chronic disease , and those living with these diseases are more likely to reach out for support online.
And finally, social media bridges generational gaps. While the results can sometimes be messy, these social spaces pool together users from very different parts of people’s lives and provide the opportunity to share skills across generational divides.
A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »
Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.
A lot of the talk around social media in the last year has been around information overload. Social media has provided us with new and exciting ways to create content. But it has also meant learning new ways to manage and engage with social media tools. Are we teetering on the edge of an information overload precipice?
Information overload is a figment of your imagination. Or a failure of your filter. Or a symptom of your technological submissiveness. Depends on who you ask.
What if you had to sort through 3.5 million articles and social media posts a day and try to pull out the most relevant items for your organisation? What if you then had to cobble it all together into something readable for your top groups and executives in your organisation?
Alacra Compliance saves time by aggregating information from both free and fee-based sources and enabling users to conduct an accurate federated search across these sources (coined “simultaneous search” by Alacra).
FreePint Family
Quilting big data threads
The fallacy of information overload
Information overload: fact, fantasy or filter failure? 
