After having a brief look around our Digital Media, Society and Culture website (blogs, if to be precise) and doing a bit of research I found out that society loves to skip topics which look extremely banal, so in the end, there is almost no information about things which can be extremely important or just fun to know. My today’s blog is dedicated to the topic “How people of different age groups use the Internet”. There were not so many sources, but I did my best to collect the coolest and most interesting bits to give as a wide overview as possible. I hope this lullaby will not put you to sleep before you finish reading the blog, haha.
So, the first fact that is totally surprising is that the group which uses the Internet most is ages from 25 to 34 (Statistics from 2019). I always thought that teenagers are the ones, who always have phones in front of their faces, but apparently, it is more about young adults. Even people from 35 to 44 use it more than the 18-24 group. That is just mind-blowing!
The group which uses the web to a very limited extent is 65+ but this doesn’t seem surprising.
If we talk about searches on the Internet, people worldwide use Google as the main search system. Young people usually look for both information and things, but most of the time they try to find something free of charge. Mainly it is about games, movies, or music. Teens also click on webpages the advertisements of which they already have seen.
Older generations prefer to look for something specific dedicated to books and traveling. They use the first search results which pop-up and also, which is even more surprising, often search for info by URLs.
When analyzing the use of social media it turns out the situation is similar. 65+ people usually stick only to Facebook, If they use such platforms at all. Group 50-64 is a common user of Linkedin which refers to their professional orientation. Some also have Instagram, but it is still not that much popular. Pinterest is more popular than Instagram for this age group (so there are country differences as well). It may come as another shock but the middle aged part of society (the US is the leader again) is a fan of Twitter (though why should we be surprised if they all signed up after B. Obama decided to run for President and used Twitter in his presidential campaign).
However, sources list another reason, that is this is the group which mainly uses social media as a news “dealer” rather than something else. Millennials are not that fond of Marc Zuckerberg’s creation as they prefer Snapchat (considered totally outdated in Belarus) and tend to be more active on Instagram. Generation Z is all about fast-changing things and a huge amount of content every second so they are on Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, and Tik-Tok simultaneously and seem to be navigating skilfully in the ocean of images, data and sounds.
And what are you: Millennial, Generation Z or Middle Age Twitter lover?
Sources:
1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/272365/age-distribution-of-internet-users-worldwide/
2. https://www.targetinternet.com/how-different-age-groups-are-using-social-media/
3. https://www.userzoom.com/ux-library/what-are-the-differences-in-how-age-demographics-search/
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