Senior Web users on rise – and they’re using Google, Facebook and YouTube
Do your parents or grandparents use the Internet and surf the Web? If not then although they’re in the majority for people of a certain age, it’s a shrinking majority. The number of people over the age of 65 using the Web is growing, and these silver surfers are using the exact same sites as the rest of the population.
People over the age of 65 – senior citizens, OAPs, the elderly, or however you refer to them – are a growing portion of the world’s population. People are living longer on average now than ever before thanks to better diets, living conditions, and health care. However, there’s a definite generational split when it comes to technology, and in particular computers and the Internet.
But, this is slowly changing, as more and more of the older generation, who grew up in an age where computers were room-sized calculating machines, are getting themselves online.
According to new research from Nielsen, there were 11.3 million seniors using the Web in November 2004 in the U.S. Five years later, in November 2009, and there are 17.5 million seniors using the Web. That’s a 55 percent increase in just half a decade although Web users of 65 years and over still only account for 10 percent of the total.
The time spent online by seniors is also growing, with the monthly average increasing from 52 hours to 58 hours. But what are these oldies using the Web for?
88.6 percent use it for email, 68.6 percent for maps, and 60.1 percent for checking the weather. And around half use the Web for paying bills and posting photos.
Google Search is unsurprisingly the site most often visited by seniors, with Windows Media Player close behind thanks to the amount of sites which require it. Rather more surprisingly is the fact that the older generation are now getting into social networking, with Facebook coming in third and YouTube in fourth.
Computers and the Internet should be for everyone, no matter their age, gender, or race. And while it’s taken senior citizens a little longer than the younger generation to climb on board that now looks like happening. And about time.
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December 6th, 2011
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