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What Do Boomers Know About Social Networks?

Posted by Nick O'Neill on March 26th, 2008 11:06 AM

I’m about to drive downtown to speak at the Boomer Business Summit on a panel about social networks and blogs for boomers. This is definitely foreign territory for me. The main boomers I know are my parents and their friends. So how are boomers using social networks? I know that both my parents are on Facebook and use the site regularly. I don’t think they are the average boomer though.

I’m curious to find out what type of social networks the boomers are involved in and what their thoughts on transparency are. As I posted about this morning, Gary Vaynerchuk suggests that the world is going to become increasingly transparent and we won’t be able to hide from ourselves. Ultimately the truth about everyone will be public information. I think that the boomers may be one of the last generations that aren’t totally transparent.

Then again I have friends that avoid putting all their information online. They are not going to become Twitter users anytime soon. They use the web for email, instant messaging, news and stalking their friends on Facebook. Are you a boomer? What types of social networks are you active on? Do you think boomers are more hesitant to become more transparent? What suggestions do you think I should make for the boomers while at the conference?

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Viewing 6 Comments

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    I am super interested to hear what Boomers have to say about social networks. I'm working on a project related to that at Quinnipiac University (I've heard that you're coming to check us out?). Please, let us know what they had to say. I'm sure they have some different points of view than the rest of us.
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    Ok, I'm a boomer who uses social networking. Most of it is new to me. I have two blogs, a facebook page, a myspace page and I'm on twitter. I dtarted all this just a few months ago and it really exploded for me when I got on twitter.

    For me, I am using it as a learning tool, a way to keep my ear to the ground so to speak, and something to do to stave off boredom. Right now I am unemployed and have been looking for work for about 6 months now. Using social networking keeps me from getting too self absorbed and in a funk about not working. I see value in it. Any agency that hires me will have a resource for internet strategies and the use of the internet. So, that's me. Thanks for asking.
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    In Pew Internet Project data from Dec. 2006 (a little outdated, I know), only 8% of adults ages 50-64 reported having created a profile on a website, including social networking sites. We can assume this number has risen a little in the last year, but not significantly.

    See: http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/65/dataset_dis...

    I do know that several of my professors maintain Facebook accounts, although I think that academics are certainly an exception to the rule. My parents, for example, would never create profiles on SNSs. They don't even have an Internet connection at home (much to my dismay)!
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    hi - Much to my dismay, I'm technically categorized as a boomer (born 1957) although I don't consider myself one. I was too young when the whole hippie thing was going on.

    Anyway, I'd be interested to hear what you learned at the summit. For what it's worth, every boomer I know is online and almost everyone is involved in social media in some way. We read blogs, sometimes comment on them and a few of us write them. We all use Facebook (but generally not MySpace) and LinkedIn, and some people are really, really active. If you count YouTube as social media, even my 77-year-old mother is a regular user (although she doesn't comment or post her own). The techies I know all use Technorati, Digg, etc., but I don't -- I'm not really the target audience. I personally am a big user and sometime contributor to things like Wikipedia, TripAdvisor, etc.

    Anyway, interesting to hear your point of view. I enjoy the blog.
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    Nick,

    There is a pretty well established social network for the 'over 40 crowd' called http://tbd.com. Their founder actually spoke a bit at SXSWi.

    They seem to have been pretty successful at it but I run into the same thoughts when catering to the Boomer generation. Their thoughts and needs, technically speaking, are very different than the 20-somethings. It seems like its more of a balance of relying on older technologies that they are comfortable with to get them more involved in these mediums. Hope this helps!
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    Hi Rick,

    What are your findings about this topic? I am a student who is currently researching how online communities can be used to communicate to females convincingly.

    I can imaging that this is different for Generation X and Boomers.

    Did you gain more insight in their community usage habits?

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