50pc of Brit women over 55 log on to Facebook
By ANIMonday, October 18, 2010
LONDON - A research has found that social networking sites are a guilty pleasure shared by astonishingly high numbers of ’silver surfers’.
Almost half of female Internet users over 55 regularly log on to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Even grandparents are joining the forums and realizing that they are often the best way to check up on their families, who can be too busy to actually meet up in person.
Older singletons are using the sites as a way to find love.
The study of 2,000 older internet users by researchers Mintel found that more than a third of men and women over 55 also visited sites like YouTube to watch videos for free.
Almost a fifth of all Britons who visited social networks for the first time last month were aged over 55, the figures show. It is estimated that nearly 100,000 older people have logged on to sites like Facebook for the first time in the past year.
“Far more older women are using social networking sites than men. We found that women are going online for family orientated reasons,” the Daily Mail quoted Matt King, an analyst at Mintel, as saying.
“It is a way for them to look at pictures to see what their children and grandchildren have been up to. It’s a way for them to keep in touch,” King added. (ANI)
