One-in-ten (11%) online adults ages 50-64 and one-in-twenty (5%) online adults ages 65 and older now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves or see updates about others.
The use of Twitter and other services to share status updates has also grown among older users — most notably among those ages 50-64. While just 5% of users ages 50-64 had used Twitter or another status-update service in 2009, 11% now say they use these tools. On a typical day, 6% of online adults ages 50-64 make Twitter a part of their routine, up from the 1% who did so in 2009.
By comparison, social networking sites have gained a much larger foothold in the lives of older Americans over time. One-in-five (20%) online adults ages 50-64 say they use social networking sites on a typical day, up from 10% one year ago. Likewise, 13% of online adults ages 65 and older log on to social networking sites, compared with just 4% who did so in 2009.
Email and online news are still more appealing to older users, but social media sites attract many repeat visitors.
While email may be falling out of favor with today's teenagers, older adults still rely on it heavily as an essential tool for their daily communications. Overall, 92% of those ages 50-64 and 89% of those ages 65 and older send or read email and more than half of each group exchanges email messages on a typical day. Online news gathering also ranks highly in the daily media habits of older adults; 76% of internet users ages 50-64 get news online, and 42% do so on a typical day. Among internet users ages 65 and older, 62% look for news online and 34% do so on a typical day.
Social media properties — including networking and status-update sites -- are newer additions to the daily digital diet of older adults. Yet, the "stickiness" of the sites is notable. To look at the data another way, among the pool of adults ages 50 and older who use social networking sites, 44% used them on the day prior to their being contacted for our survey.
The pool of Twitter and status update users ages 50 and older is too small to segment, but the behavior of this limited early adopter group does suggest a similar tendency towards regular use of the sites.
By comparison, less than half of online banking users ages 50 and older visited the sites on a typical day and less than one-in-five older users of online classified sites reported use of the sites "yesterday."
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