The Number
Pew Internet Life manages to answer many of our curiosities, even before we know how to articulate them. From its recent “Older Adults and Social Media” report:
- 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%.
It’s astounding how fast the overall population is going digital, an acceleration even from several years ago when we clearly saw “power digital users”, whose habits were significantly ahead of the overall population. If anything, the print-to-digital revolution is only moving faster.