Adults are making the Internet less cool
"All yours, Gramps."
The Pew Internet Center released a new social media survey yesterday. The survey confirms that Facebook is the social network of choice for the educational elites (not surprising since it started out as a social network for Ivy Leaguers):
Among adult profile owners with a high school degree or less, 64% have a profile on MySpace, 63% have a profile on Facebook and just 3% have a LinkedIn profile. Among profile owners with at least some college experience, Facebook and LinkedIn are much more popular—41% have a profile on MySpace, 78% have profile on Facebook and 19% have a LinkedIn profile.
via Adults and social networks | Pew Internet & American Life Project.
Given that those with advanced degrees tend to make more money, it’s not surprising that Pew found that the Facebook community tends to be more affluent than the MySpace ‘hood.
Pew also confirms the race divide on social networks:
Additionally, white profile owners appear to gravitate towards Facebook and LinkedIn, while minority profile owners tend towards profiles on MySpace.
Most people who follow Internet trends likely don’t find the above surprising. More interesting are Pew’s findings on age demographics. It appears “old people” are taking over the Internetz….
This page of the survey is dedicated to age issues. Here are some snapshots of 2007 vs. 2009:
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Blogging is no longer the young, hip thing to do. Grown-ups ruin everything!
And there are a lot more grown-ups on social networking sites these days, which may explain why teens are losing interest:
Even with teens’ continued enthusiasm for social networking, recent changes in their communication patterns on the sites suggest they are somewhat less tethered to their profiles. Teens have remained steady or even shown a slight decline in their likelihood of using social network sites to connect with friends. A bit more than a third (37%) of social network-using teens said they sent messages to friends every day through the social sites, a drop from the 42% of such teens who said they did so in February of 2008. Additionally, fewer teens are sending bulletins or group messages or sending private messages to friends from within social network sites. About half of teen social network users send group messages, down from 61% in 2006. And two-thirds of social network-using teens send private messages to friends, down from 82% in November 2006.
via Teens and social network communication practices | Pew Internet & American Life Project.
Watch out, Facebook. You may go the way of blogging.
As for Twitter, it’s never been cool.
Adults are flocking to social networks, but they’re not always savvy about it. A 30-something friend of mine related a story about his mother. She sent him a Facebook message and asked: “I have a question. When I send you a message on Facebook, can everyone read it?”
Many older adults don’t really “get it” when it comes to social networking. A recent San Francisco Chronicle piece pointed out that they overshare and put themselves at risk:
More than half of adults 45 and older who are on social networks like Facebook could be in danger of becoming victims of identity theft or other crimes because they share too much private information, according to a study released today.
In one example, the study commissioned by a unit of credit reporting services firm Experian found that 14 percent of adults – and 20 percent of those age 60 and over – listed their full home addresses in their social media profiles.
If they then post updates from a trip, that tells thieves “no one is watching your house,” said Jennifer Leuer, general manager of Experian’s ProtectMyID.com. “You obviously don’t want everybody on the Web to be able to see that.”
The Chronicle offered some tips to Old Folks to help them protect themselves:
– Avoid posting personal details such as hometowns or home addresses, phone numbers, educational background and information about children in profiles or photo identification.
– Examine and customize your social network’s privacy settings.
– Be sure an online quiz or game comes from a reputable source.
– Do not use passwords that incorporate information that is publicly available.
Those are excellent security tips. I’ll add some tips on how to be cool on Facebook. (This applies to the old and the young alike.)
1. In the words of Mark Drapeau, “don’t ask me to be fan of your mundane life.”
2. Do not friend your friends’ friends, unless you really know them. Not cool.
3. Do not send “challenge my BLANK knowledge” requests to your friends. It is like the spam mail of Facebook notifications.
4. Beware the poke.
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It’s true, the Net is ours! Geezer power! But youth needn’t despair.They’ll always have texting. We think it’s idiotic.
Not as cool as the old days, when Yalies used to entertain themselves on a Friday night by typing in the transcripts of Monty Python episodes to BitServe..!
Er- BitNet, not BitServe. Confused by my old CompuServe account… and clearly not helping my case about older people and the Internet being less cool.
In response to another comment. See in context »Wait’ll you see what we do when someone invents an anti-social networking site. Lots of good advice here but I’m well past learning.
So where have those young people gone? I think they’re out on my lawn!
Actually, my kids and their friends all seem to be texting much more than posting. That doesn’t say much for their attention spans.
It seems like Facebook status updates and texts may have usurped the place of “long-form” blogging.
In response to another comment. See in context »