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The Middle Age of Social Media 04.27.09
A new poll (fielded at the end of March beginning of April 09) shows that sites like Facebook and MySpace are not exclusively the provence of Gen Y or Millennials.
In the Internet era, we’ve come to expect that young adults will quickly embrace new technologies and applications. It’s more surprising when not-so-young adults get into the act en masse. That’s what’s happening with social networking, though, as is clear from the findings of a Harris Poll conducted for AdweekMedia among online adults.
As the polling found, lots of certifiably middle-age people not only have Facebook or MySpace accounts but update them often. Asked whether they have a Facebook or MySpace account, 41 percent of 45-54-year-olds and 24 percent of those 55-plus said they do. So did 47 percent of the 35-44s and 74 percent of the 18-34s.
Ten percent of the 45-54s and 3 percent of those 55-plus said they update those accounts at least once a day. Twenty-nine percent of the 18-34s and 17 percent of the 35-44s said the same.
Twittering remains a niche activity across the age spectrum. Eight percent of the 18-34s said they use Twitter, as did 7 percent of the 35-44s, 4 percent of the 45-54s and 1 percent of those 55-plus.
The poll (fielded at the end of March and beginning of April) also asked whether social-networking sites threaten the likes of Google and Yahoo. Given a batch of statements and asked to pick the one that best matches their own view, 9 percent said sites like Facebook and MySpace “are becoming so dominant that they may become a real threat to search sites like Google or Yahoo.” While agreeing that social-networking sites “are very popular,” 45 percent said “they will never pose any real threat to the domination of search sites such as Google or Yahoo.”
A plurality, 46 percent, chose the answer “not at all sure,” an indication that this topic is less than a matter of urgency for the mass of consumers.
Source
Adweek
Posted by Julie Li / Permalink /
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