What Are The Silver Surfers Up To Online?

Social Media January 21, 2010 12 Comments @laurenfisher

Now it may not be the sexiest side of all things social media, but the question of whether older people (we’re talking around 65+ here) really use the internet for anything other than email gets asked more than you might think. The silver surfer market is still a valuable one for many brands, but it’s not touched upon all that frequently. I personally believe that it’s an interesting topic that should be discussed more and that this mature market should feature more heavily in online marketing plans. According to a recent survey from Pew, 38% of U.S. adults aged 65+ now go online. Clearly this isn’t a majority share, at around 4 in 10 but I think it’s incredibly impressive given the fast pace with which you have to adapt to new technology today.

The fact is that silver surfers are a thriving, active group online, despite setbacks that prevent them accessing the internet. The same research cited the fact that just 26% of U.S. adults aged 65+ have home broadband access. Take the figure again that 4 in 10 aged 65+ go online and it now seems all the more impressive. Clearly there is something to be addressed here in terms of education into using the internet and actually providing the means to get online. Given how isolated and cut off many older people are, if we can provide wider access to the internet this could drastically affect their day to day lives. How many senior citizens do you know that could benefit from doing their food shopping online?

So for these older people that do get online, just what are they doing? They’re certainly not to be relegated to just search and email – though this may be the primary activity for most older people online, it’s not all they’re doing. Nielsen conducted valuable research into the activities of people aged 65+ online and found that viewing or sharing photos was the 5th most popular activity, performed by 50% of those seniors online. Personal activities such as planning travel, finance and healthcare also featured heavily. Facebook was also the 3rd most visited destination, having made a huge jump from 45th place just one year ago. This is a huge acceleration that demonstrates how quickly this audience is adapting online behaviour to take advantage of new tools and stay connected.

I’ve outlined a few examples below to demonstrate just how active this senior audience is online.

Geriatric 1927

Peter Oakley (otherwise known as geriatric1927) is a pioneer of youtube among older people, making his first video on the site in 2006, as part of a short autobiographical series. Just one week after his first broadcast he was the most subscribed-to user. Seriously impressive by any standard. He still updates his channel regularly, with a new video at least once a week.

Great Depression Cooking

We may be living through one of the biggest recessions in living memory but Clara from depression cooking shares recipes from the great depression on Youtube and her dry style are a massive hit with most videos getting a couple of hundred thousand views and some even getting millions of views. There is a good possibility that she is the oldest celebrity chef in the world.

Ivy Bean

Ivy Bean wasn’t content with being the oldest person on Facebook, so she then took on Twitter too (There is some doubt about her validity with some claiming she was planted by the British press but she tweets to this day). Her account is regularly updated and she’s managed to accrue over 54,000 followers. Ivy is a wonderful example of someone older really embracing social media. So far, all of her updates seem to be from the web, but I wouldn’t give her too long before she’s using a Twitter client to manage her account.

Saga Zone

Saga Zone is a UK-based site, that was one of the first dedicated social networks for older people. Offering the ability to chat, write blogs, share photos and start groups, Saga Zone is a great example of bringing social networking into the mainstream for over 50s.

Silver Surfer’s Day

21 May 2010 is Silver Surfer day in the UK, and the event is aimed at opening the doors to technology for older people, through education and resources. Local communities work together to help spread digital inclusion and 66 schools took part in the programme last year. It’s an excellent cause and we’ll hopefully start to see more and more initiatives like this.

Marguerite Faulkner

Marguerite was named as Ireland’s Silver Surfer of the year in Age Action Ireland’s silver surfer awards. After receiving a computer from her family for Christmas, Marguerite now uses it to send emails, chat to family on skype, completed a digital photography course. When not on her computer, she regularly uses her Nintendo DS

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Comments

http://twitter.com/dscanlon David

Interesting read, thanks Lauren.

eMarketer published a similar report yesterday looking at how the “Boomer” generation in the US is using the Web and new technology, see http://bit.ly/7Jh0df
Lauren Fisher

Thanks for the link David. I think that eMarketer report used the same stats from the Pew study. Interesting reading I think
http://re-visionlabs.com/ Aurea Astro

I absolutely love this post! Thank you for the links and YouTube videos. I personally think one of the many wonderful aspects of social media is its ability to connect and inform those more frequently left out ‘of the loop’ so to speak, including the elderly, who often find themselves marginalized in a youth-centric culture. I found that middle-aged individuals are using new media more and more (skype, facebook) more and more to keep in contact with their kids, too, through a random interview process on the street. I video-blogged about it here if you’re interested: http://blablab.re-visionlabs.com/2010/01/15/1980/

Lauren Fisher

Hi Aurea, I’m really glad you enjoyed the post. The point about keeping people connected is an important one, which is why I’d like to see more initiatives that aim to educate the elderly into how use the internet to keep in touch with family and add conveniences to their daily lives. I’ll be sure to check your blog out too, interesting idea for an interview

http://www.glissmedia.com John McLachlan

Thanks for this post, Lauren. It was not only interesting but it took me to a couple of video blogs that were very touching and reminded me of why older people can be so inspiring. Clara brought a tear to my eye.

http://re-visionlabs.com/ Aurea Astro

I feel the same way, John! I was adopted by two elderly people as a youth and Clara’s cooking reminded me of my grandma’s dinners – especially Sunday dinner!
Lauren Fisher

I’m really touched it had that effect on you. It’s amazing to see some elderly people embracing something that is still very new to a lot of us – they’re very inspiring.

http://www.ageaction.ie Eamon Timmins

Lauren, timely article. There is no doubt that this is an emerging market for the IT sector. The reality is that IT offers huge benefits for older users, especially those who may have physical disabilities. In Ireland, the organisation I work for, Age Action, trained over 5,000 older first-time IT users last year in computer use and use of mobile phones. Despite the stereo-type image in Ireland that older people are not interested in learning to use computers, most of our courses were over-subscribed and the biggest difficulty we had was trying to secure suitable premises and volunteer tutors. You have highlighted our “Silver Surfer of the Year”, the marvellous Marguerite Faulkner (95)who is a magnificent ambassador for older people. We also got a great response to our YouTube video to challenge public perceptions of ageing check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laCLBVmk1EU
Karen

Really enjoyed this post. The middle-aged and “young” seniors are, for the most part, comfortable with technology but too often we forget that there’s a large segment of older seniors and the “elderly elderly” that are missing out. I read somewhere that the two most common reasons for this was 1)this group didn’t see the benefit of being online – not that there isn’t one – they just don’t know what being online could do for them. (Your post does a great job of addressing this issue); and 2) many older people find it hard to use traditional technology. ie. Small buttons and type, trouble using a keyboard and mouse, etc. Thankfully there are some great products coming out that address this. Things like the new iPad or PointerWare software for seniors are two good examples.
Sarah Diffley

Im a research masters student researching how people use social networking sites like MySpace, Bebo and Facebook in Ireland. A part of my research is an online survey. Im looking for a variety of ages to complete the survey and those over the age of 45 are required. If anyone knows of anyone in this age bracket that uses social networking sites and resides in Ireland it would be greatly appreciated if you could ask them to complete the survey and ask anyone else they know in that category to do the same. The direct link for the survey is http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/socialnetworks

I’ve also set up a facebook group you can join with the survey on it and that you can pass on to all your friends.

http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?v=info&gid=230445172274

Thanks,

Sarah
james

Hi, very interesting read, i am currently begining to research this area in ireland, i.e how many “silver surfers” we actually may have in ireland and what they use the internet for. I am also interested to know do this generation of people feel that there are not enough web sites offering products and services directly to them instead going for the so called younger demographic. I would also like to get some feedback from folks 50 years old and over, what are their views? what would they like to have access to on the net or even access the net, age action seem to be doing marvelous work and deserve to be commended on this. if anyone can supply this info please leave a follow up comment.
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