Senior Citizens vs. Baby Boomers On the Internet

by Kasthuri VN on November 21st, 2009 Share on    

How many senior citizens and baby boomers are online and what exactly are they doing here? Well, there are quite a few active users in this demographic.

28% of American senior citizens (65+ years) had reported going online everyday in Feb and March of this year. Compare this with the boomer population that is estimated to constitute 28.8% of all internet users.

Activities that senior citizens do online
Use email : 94%
Shop online : 77%
Look for health information : 71%
Read news : 70%
Manage finances and banking : 59%
Play free online games : 47%

Activities that US Boomer population do online
Use email : 93%
Read news : 73%
Shopping online : 71%
Gather information : 67%
Pay bills : 66%
Social networking & Message boards : 39%
Watch videos online : 30%

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10 comments

1 Sandesh { 11.21.09 at 3:20 pm }

Very good information. But is it the correct information, if so the seniors do use lot of internet.

2 Anand { 11.21.09 at 3:49 pm }

Hi Sandesh

The data is presumably reliable because it comes from the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM).

3 Sandesh { 11.21.09 at 4:26 pm }

Pretty impressive…….. :)

4 Most Popular Websites Among Senior Citizens — Tech Crunchies – Internet Statistics and Numbers { 12.11.09 at 4:16 am }

[...] online destinations among the senior citizens (65+) being not too different from what it could be for Boomers or younger. Here are the top ten websites that is popular among people of the older age group [...]

5 My Bambino { 12.26.09 at 6:57 am }

Thanks for giving the information.

6 Anand { 12.26.09 at 6:59 am }

Glad that you found it useful :)

7 Video Gaming Among Adult Population — Tech Crunchies – Internet Statistics and Numbers { 01.11.10 at 4:22 am }

[...] gaming is getting popular among the baby boomers and matures. A recent report from Deloitte shows the surging popularity of gaming among the older population. [...]

8 Shubiedoo { 01.12.10 at 4:25 pm }

What I’m interested in finding out is how the senior/boomer population’s usage of internet varies by salary, or where they shop? One would assume the usage decreases as the salaries lower, but that would be interesting to see laid out by age.

9 Anand { 01.12.10 at 4:33 pm }

That’s an interesting point to study, Shubiedoo. But I think one reason why researchers have not studied it is because the numbers are too thin to be distributed into salary brackets.

Will also probably check out if such a study has been conducted so far. Thanks for the comment.

10 US Internet Penetration By Age — Tech Crunchies – Internet Statistics and Numbers { 02.17.10 at 5:46 am }

[...] 2010. The most internet savvy population is without doubt in the age group of 12-24. However, the landscape is changing quick among the older generation with the internet penetration likely to cross 50% [...]

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