Over on Twitter, I have jokingly made myself the director of the Twitterville Senior Center. We are going to need to expand the facility. eMarketer, publishers of the only email newsletter I still read loyally, has just published numbers that say that the number of seniors online in the US is at 20 million and growing at a rate of 7.6%, compared with the overall grwth rate of 3.1 %.
I would assume this type of growth and adoption is applicable to the remainder of the connected world as well as the US. While eMarketer may be excited because we seniors seem to be an untapped market that can now get hit online for advertising & DM, I am more interested in the social phenomenon that is occurring simply by the passage of time.
I am no digital native. I first started using a PC in 1982 at the age of 37. By 1984, most of my friends my age were using them Just about none of our parents were using them, and when someone our age said he wanted to make software our mothers would use, it became a Holy Grail of not just marketing, but ease of use.
28 years have passed. I am now a couple months shy of my 64th birthday. My generation has, by demographic standards, become senior. This fact has not caused us to push our laptops aside in favor of TV sets, although many if us have discovered a grandchild's smile is more valuable than a TechMeme mention.
What has lagged is the general image of those of us past 60. We are fitter and more current than you may think. We use the internet to inform each other about health and finance and other issues that become more important as we age. I'm sure most of you will do the same if you make to our age.
My point is this: The rise of seniors online is not being caused by old people picking up comoputers late in life. It is being caused by the very natural evolution of young people getting older, a trend that I'm pretty sure will continue.
A great many of us are quite computer lierate and from this point forward it should be no surprise that our numbers will continue to grow.
Amen Shel. I didn't start using a computer because my kids were using them in school - I saw them as a tool I could DO stuff with.
It must have been about the same time you did because I remember the first house where the under appreciated Commodore sat in my kitchen. We moved from there in 1983 when I was 35.
By that time it was part of my life and I've never looked back.
Posted by: Susan Reynolds | June 03, 2008 at 09:52 AM
Shel -- Great post. I appreciate very much your comment: "Many [of] us have discovered a grandchild's smile is more valuable than a TechMeme mention."
There's a lifetime of truth in that statement... something for all of us, no matter which generation we're in, to be sure we get clear on.
BTW, is there golfcart rental for the senior center?
Posted by: Robert Merrill | June 03, 2008 at 10:04 AM
Robert,
We have virtual golf cart rentals for virtual dollars. Studying Linden Labs for monetization model.
Posted by: shel israel | June 03, 2008 at 10:24 AM
My first PC was a TRS80; pretty frustrating trying to find out where the error was in my BASIC code. My mother, who is almost your age, is very PC/Internet savvy. The one difference I notice between our interactions with the internet is that my actions are more relation/social based, where hers are need/consumer based. Her social network only includes the occasional IM with local friends and does not exist beyond that.
Posted by: Natalie | June 03, 2008 at 02:05 PM