Who’s using social sites? Your Mom!

Posted on Sep 9, 2010 in Facebook

I ran across some great data, illustrated by the team at Flowtown, that highlights the latest demographic statistics about social network usage. Surprisingly, the majority of users are no longer college students, but are older than 38 years old. In fact, the most significant growth in the last few years have been adults 50 years and older.

A few stats that stood out to me:

  • The average Facebook user is 38 years old, and 64% of Twitter’s users are 35 or older.
  • Almost half of Internet users ages 50-64 are using social sites
  • 18-29 year olds use social networks (60%) almost as much as email (62%)

Any stats surprise you?

  • http://twitter.com/drewhawkins drewhawkins

    Not real surprising. What starts as an attempt to keep tabs on kids turns out to be something more useful to the parentals. My mom is actually now on Twitter – actually a suggestion by me!

  • http://twitter.com/drewhawkins drewhawkins

    Not real surprising. What starts as an attempt to keep tabs on kids turns out to be something more useful to the parentals. My mom is actually now on Twitter – actually a suggestion by me!

  • http://www.jeffhilimire.com Jeff Hilimire

    I’m shocked by this data. I knew the “older demo”, I can say that because I’m basically in that demo now, was the fastest growing population but to be the largest demographic from a numbers standpoint is staggering.

    This leads me to wonder what Facebook’s future will be. Will 16 year-old Johnny want to join Facebook when his mom, his grandmother and the rest of his family are on it? Or will he start jumping to try the next new thing just to get away from that part of his life?

  • http://www.jeffhilimire.com Jeff Hilimire

    I’m shocked by this data. I knew the “older demo”, I can say that because I’m basically in that demo now, was the fastest growing population but to be the largest demographic from a numbers standpoint is staggering.

    This leads me to wonder what Facebook’s future will be. Will 16 year-old Johnny want to join Facebook when his mom, his grandmother and the rest of his family are on it? Or will he start jumping to try the next new thing just to get away from that part of his life?

  • http://twitter.com/LaurenMullins Lauren Mullins

    This is interesting data, albeit I think lacking on details. It clearly covers that the older demo is on these social sites, but fails to account how they actually use them. I would wonder how many times per week the 35+ age range logs in to their social accounts, average number of friends on Facebook they have, etc.

    I’m friends with many of my older relatives on Facebook (ages 50-61), but they use Facebook very differently than a younger demo. For instance, my Aunt Peggy uses Facebook, but the majority of her “friends” are family. She uses it to keep up with events in our lives, look at pictures, etc – but doesn’t fully take advantage of Facebook’s features. For instance, she rarely comments, instead I get phone calls that begin with “I saw on Facebook that you…”

    I use this example because I think that while this age range might now be the majority of users that are registered, but when considering the most active users they would still be the minority.

  • http://welcometojmart.com/ Josh Martin

    True, but to Jeff’s comment, what happens when the younger generation finally decide that Facebook isn’t “cool” anymore and move to something else.

    Kudos for getting your mom on Twitter! :)

  • http://twitter.com/drewhawkins drewhawkins

    Jeff does bring up a good question (though I didn’t see it until after I posted my response). Will another social network pop up? My guess is initially, the 16 year olds may get more savvy with privacy controls until the next thing pops up. Because there always is a next thing

  • http://welcometojmart.com/ Josh Martin

    Great points, Lauren. I agree, that the usage of the older demo is probably way different than the younger demo. It would be interesting to see how many brands each demo “Likes” on Facebook. Are the younger users liking more brands on Facebook than the older users?