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Social Networking Experiences a Great Migration of Maturity

by Warren Riddle on August 28, 2010 at 12:00 PM

older man on facebook
During 2009, 30-somethings represented the most rapidly expanding demographic on Facebook. While the number of older social networkers continues to escalate, so too does the actual age of the flocking Facebook fogies. According to a Pew survey, the period between April 2009 and May 2010 witnessed an explosive increase in mature social networking, as the percentage of Internet users 50-and-older who visit sites like Facebook sprinted from 22-percent to 42-percent.

Nearly half of 50- to 65-year-old Web surfers now network online, up from last year's total of 25-percent. The number of them who do so on a daily basis jumped from 10-percent to 20-percent. For online people over 65, the number of networkers doubled from 13-percent to 26-percent, while the segment of daily users climbed from a paltry 4-percent to 13-percent. Pew maintains that "e-mail is still the primary way that older users maintain contact," but many "now rely on social network platforms to help manage their daily communications."

This burgeoning reliance on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and other similar services poses two significant dilemmas, though. Obviously, folks who don't want Grandma to see the pics from last Thursday's 'Jersey Shore' drinking game will have to tediously readjust their complicated privacy settings. And -- more importantly -- given the recent rise in senior citizen sexting, how exactly do we keep the pictures from Grandma's 'Matlock' drinking game off of our feeds?

Tags: facebook, pew internet and american life project, PewInternetAndAmericanLifeProject, PewResearchCenter, Senior Citizens, SeniorCitizens, social networking, social networks, SocialNetworking, SocialNetworks, statistics, top, twitter

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