Baby boomers, or post WWII babies, have apparently discovered social networking and many other online applications, according to a recent survey by Accenture. As reported by Junko Yushida in a EETIMES.com article, the management consulting firm reported that there has been a 67 percent increase in baby boomers reading blogs and podcasts and an increase of 59 percent in the use of social networking sites. Clearly these statistics show that a small amount of people were originally involved with these things and all of a sudden the number increased, which still shows that baby boomers are a fast growing contingent in the use of social media. The study claims that the reasons for the increase in use are staying up-to-date and remaining connected to family.
An article in USA Today by Marco R. della Cava quotes various baby boomers’ reasons for using social networks and other social media. One gentleman used social networks as a means of recovering his lost communication abilities because a stroke inhibited his ability to speak. Other common reasons included sharing unique interests (Nascar, BBQ, moms raising teens) with a wider audience than would be possible without social networking. Of course the most common reason for anyone to join a social network is to reconnect with old friends.
The older one gets, the more old friends one accumulates, social networking is the idea way to continue those friendships.
