Did you know that adults still make up the majority of social networking site users? A survey in December 2008 by the Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that the number of adult Internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled since 2005 (from 8% to 35%).
Although adults make up the majority of social network users, younger online adults are more likely than older adults to use them: 75% of adults aged 18-24 vs. 7% of those 65+. The following chart shows US adult Internet users who have created a profile on a social networking site:
If you include occasional visitors to online social networks, in addition to those who have posted profiles, the number is 70.2% of US Internet users ages 15+, according to the following chart from comScore World Metrix:
I might point out that Facebook started off targeting a non-teen audience. Originally, Facebook was a social site for college students, and they gradually opened it up for everyone.
it is interesting how many of my friends are now on facebook. I am 33 and never cared much about facebook in the past because I wasn’t a single young adult using it as part of my social life. But now that I’m interested in finding old roommates or high school chums, it really is a helpful way to keep in touch.
I think your article was the catalyst for getting me started on Facebook, Larry. I am an old blogger and had resisted Facebook for years until this past week. I am now amazed at how many people have connected with me from work and former ward members who have moved away. I am looking forward to re-connecting with many more former and present associates and friends. Thanks for this great encouraging article.
I’m a 63 yr old Grandma who got on Facebook first because my kids were on it. Then I started looking for other family members, friends, and HS and college friends. I love it! There aren’t that many my age yet, but I hope that with time, I can find lots more friends from my past.
Just for the sake of clarity, we should probably point out that the reason adults make up the majority of social networkers is because there are more adults than teens in the country. Here’s a quote from the Pew study: “Adults make up a larger portion of the US population than teens, which is why the 35% number represents a larger number of users than the 65% of online teens who also use online social networks.” So overall, social network sites are still more popular among teens than among adults. But what you’re saying is still valid and interesting.
Notice how 18-24 year olds are the majority of “adults”. I know that technically 18-24 year olds are “adults”, but I personally lump them in with teens (many college students are actually teens, since we don’t say onety-eight or onety-nine), when I was 18-22, I felt more like a teen than an adult (I even called myself a teenager up through age 21 and my parents thought of me as a teen up through age 23-24, so that means 18-24 year olds should still be lumped in with the teens). So if you include 18-24 year olds as teens, not as adults (I consider any age group that looks up to 30-40-50-60-70-etc-somethings as a separate category from themselves as not being adults yet, and that includes most who are 18-24, but then again, I know a 14 year old girl who is more intelligent and mature than anyone I know of any age, so there are exceptions), the statistics for adults using Facebook isn’t quite as promising.
However, we need not worry that we’re the old fogies that are rarer than hen’s teeth on these sites, the parents of the 13-24 year olds who use these sites are often being invited to join in the fun. The way we use Facebook is markedly different from how the 13-24 crowd uses it, however. Most young’uns use it to post pictures of their silly events and talk about their wild parties or whatever they did over the weekend or complain about how their microwave pizza exploded while being heated. Meanwhile, we use it to find old friends, to promote our businesses, etc. For example, my Facebook page is about the promotion of my city’s downtown, and has very little information about myself.
I AM PROUD TO BE A MORMON