About 22 percent of U.S. Internet users ages 40 and over use social networking Web sites, according to JWT BOOM/ThirdAge. A separate survey by ExactTarget fount that 39 percent of 35 to 44 year-olds used social networks, use fell sharply with age.
Only 13 percent of 55 to 64 year-olds were social networkers, and only four percent of those ages 65 and older used social networking.
About 75 percent of Internet users ages 15 to 24 use social networking sites, ExactTarget finds.
The implications are most significant for marketers who rely on word of mouth. According to the JWT BOOM/ThirdAge study, more than 75 percent of 40-and-over users received promotional e-mails about products and services and then clicked through to the site being promoted.
More than 55 percent of 40-or-older users purchased a product or service promoted in an e-mail.
Some 93 percent of respondents read an article about a Web site in print and later visited the site.
About 83 percent visited a Web site after seeing an advertisement for the site in a newspaper or print magazine.
Why don't consumers 40 and older use social networking sites? Respondents say their main concerns are privacy, time and just not seeing the point.
It might be hard to find a serious observer who would argue social networking will not climb among the 40 or older demographics, though. Other innovations such as iPods, the Internet, text and instant messaging were adopted more slowly by older users than by younger users. Social networking won't be any different.
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