Is Digital Behavior Gap Growing?

Over time, differences in technology adoption across generations or between regions tend to close. So some might argue the differences between younger users and older users in the U.S. market suggest a gap is widening.

Others might argue the differences in adoption only mean older users are going to start using the same tools younger users favor.

Gen Y is particularly mobile savvy, Forrester Research notes. Some 85 percent of consumers in the Millennial demographic regularly send or receive text messages, compared with 57 percent of all US consumers over the age of 18.

About 27 percent of Millennials access social networks on their mobile devices (compared with 14 percent of all US consumers) and 37 percent of Millennials access the mobile Internet, compared with 23 percent of all US consumers.

I tend to think this means older demographics increasingly will adopt those behaviors as well. It seems to have happened with virtually all earlier online and mobile behaviors, and one would do well to bet with the historical trend, rather than against it.

Forrester Research