Facebook started as a social networking site for college students, but it has grown far beyond those roots. In fact, among Facebook’s 71.9 million U.S. users (71,901,400 to be almost exact), people ages 35 to 54 “are now the biggest age group on the Web site, accounting for 28.2 percent of all U.S. users as of July,” according to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle, citing data from iStrategyLabs.
The second largest age group on Facebook: ages 24 to 34, which includes 25.2 percent of Facebook users.
There are 5.9 million Facebook users who are age 55 or older. My father is one of them. At age 81, he just got a Facebook page today.
While Facebook’s user base has grown 70 percent since January, the influx of older users might be creating a (small) crisis for the site: iStrategy says the data may indicate that as older people start using Facebook, younger people are leaving or not joining Facebook in the first place.
The data suggests that the demographics of social media usage is increasingly reflecting the demographics of the overall online population. Social media and social networks aren’t just for the younger generation anymore – chances are, the people your business, organization or campaign is looking for are using the social media.
