New data from Pingdom on the age of social network users confirms the rumours. They are mostly quite old, or they lie a lot about their age.
The smallest group of people using social networks is the 18–24 age group, which rather confounds the idea that these sites are for young people. Across the board, only 9% of 18–24 year-olds are social network users, according to the research. Even on bebo, the ‘youthiest’, of the networks in the group, the mean age is 28. On facebook, which was originally conceived for college students, the average age is 38.
I have to throw in three cautions here:
- It’s not clear what counts as being a ‘user’ of a social network. Having an account? More than 5 hours a month? More than 10? If the answer is ‘having an account’, then the mean age will naturally slip to the right as people try things out and then abandon them. Parents might well be expected to create accounts to see what it’s all about or to spy on their children.
- More than half of teenagers lie about their age online, according to this story [http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/teens-lying-about-age-looks-and-lifes-online/story-0–1225746449526] and some qualitative research by danah boyd.
- The 18–24 age band is [d’uh] only 6 years, as opposed to at least 9 years for the other age groups in the study. So there are 33% fewer people in the band – of course they’re going to represent lower numbers on social networks.
Notwithstanding, I don’t think this is enough to explain away the figures. Let’s face it: most social networks are more popular with older people than the young.
More surprises about what young people do and don’t do comes via the Guardian this morning. The following graph shows the percentage of people who have paid, or are willing to pay, for media products, by age:
Across every media type, teenagers claim that they are more willing to pay or have paid than people in their forties.
If you combine the two pieces of research together, you discover that most social networks appeal to a demographic that is significantly less likely to pay for anything than teenagers. More headaches for Mr Zuckerberg.
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