Thursday, May 28, 2009

Mashing the Demographics

Link to May 27 Mashable post, "Users Over 55 Quitting Facebook: The Baby Boom Times Over?"

Excerpt: According to new data from Inside Facebook, users over the age of 55 haven’t been as actively using Facebook over the past two months after triple digit growth in that demographic earlier this year. The report has resulted in speculation that while older people are trying Facebook, they’re not sticking around.

Between November 2008 and February 2009, the baby boomer set (age 55-65) was one of the fastest growing segments on the social network, up 175.3% for females and 137.8% for males, according to the statistics. But that user boom was short-lived, and those users aren’t returning in the same numbers.

And really, why should this surprise anyone? You probably figured out this trend on your own after finding friends and acquaintances from the past, clicking on their "View Friends" link, and discovering they had none.

But this observation isn't the main reason for this post.

The 55-to-65 age group is not the baby boomer set. The standard definition for this cohort is those born from 1946 to 1964. (But don't look to Wikipedia for guidance here.) In other words, baby boomers range in age from to 45 to 63.

And as for the Generation Jones designation, oy vey!

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