Overall the online population continues to grow, data released by BMRB state internet users have grown by over 2.6 million people in the past year. BMRB research shows that the biggest growth area is still the over 55’s age bracket, which grew in Q1 09 by 17.3% year on year, however the largest numbers are still the 35-44 age bracket with a total of 7.5 million people online. The gender gap is still there but ever closing, with only 690,000 more men than women online (source: BMRB).
Social networking is still taking the digital world by storm; with 77% of UK adults aged 15+ using social networking (BMRB). Facebook continues to grow and surprisingly Socialnomics.com reports the fastest growing segment is 55-65 year old females.
2009 has been the year for Twitter, According to Hitwise Twitter received more visits than MySpace for the first time in the week ending 29th August – this comes as Socialnomics.com reports 80% of Twitter usage is on a mobile device. New research from Nielsen Online also reveals that Twitter has a surprisingly older profile base in the UK. 50-64 year old users of Twitter account for 22% of the entire UK Twitter audience, compared with just 11% of 18-24 year olds, with the largest share of the audience being 35-49 year olds.
