Is Web 2.0 Really Dominated by the Young?
by Joe McKendrick
Here’s an assumption I’m just as guilty as anyone else of spreading before thoroughly checking the facts: the assumption that Web 2.0 technologies and methodologies are mainly favored by the young.
Joe Dehlin points to a new Piper Jaffray study and makes a very astute observation: Piper Jaffray calculates that more than 100 million North Americans use instant messaging, over 100 million read blogs, and almost 100 million participate in one or more social networking sites. “I assume there are close to 11 million teenagers in North America. So who is using all of these services?” Joe asks.
Great point — however, there are many, many more young people than Joe calculates. U.S. Census data puts the “young adult” population at about 21 million aged 15-19 years old (as of 2006), and another 42 million in the 20-29 bracket. So you have about 63 million U.S. citizens in the prime of youth. Assuming most of these young people are using these new tools, then that would be up to at least 63 percent of the adopters are under the age of 30, and around 21 percent are around high-school age.
Though Web 2.0 stuff still may mainly be the province of the young, Joe is spot on with the point that many over-30 types are “coming home from work, putting the kids to bed and plugging in…. it’s way more common than people think.”
Booz Allen Hamilton, which gets paid big bucks to see the near future, agrees that Web 2.0 will be a tool for all ages, and has survey data to prove it. Booz’s Uwe Lambrette points out that “contrary to popular belief, [the Web 2.0] phenomenon is not just a ‘young male’ trend. People of all ages, both male and female are using these sites”.
Although newer sites still have predominantly young user communities (50% of MySpace users are under the age of 25), a significant proportion fall into the older 35-49 age bracket (24%). The more established the site, the more balanced the age group using it – 25% of Amazon users are over the age of 50. Over time, sites such as MySpace and YouTube are expected to see a similar adoption trend, Booz Allen Hamilton concludes.
