Older folks taking over the Internet?

In the early days of the Internet, it seemed more of a trend, a toy for younger folks. According to public perception, older people wouldn't be as interested in having a computer, much less going on line with it.

While you're on the Information Highway, watch out for the Silver Surfers. They're gaining in numbers, and a few years ago an article in the Telegraph predicted the 55-and-over set will become the largest group using the Internet by the end of 2007. In the United Kingdom, 22 percent of surfers are over 55, "just a touch behind the most active users, who are between 35 and 44 in age."

Now, several years after that prediction, the trend is holding up.

There's more. According to a group called Ofcom, people aged 65 and older spend more time online than any other age group. Try 42 hours a month on the Internet, four hours more than the most active users who are aged between 18 and 24.

It's a surprise, but then again it isn't. It's part of the process of getting older. If you're reading this on line you, too, will grow up to become a silver surfer if you live long enough and don't join a monastery where they renounce all things technological. In my mind I'm still a young pup, but in a little more than five years I will also be a silver surfer -- though the gray in my beard may make me an early qualifier. I didn't grow up with computers, but became reasonably fluent with them while in my late 20s. That in itself is not unusual; the co-called Baby Boomers (birth years 1946-64) were at the vanguard while computers were gaining popularity. My contemporaries were not born pushing a mouse; they just invented it.

The surprise is among people older than that; in their 70s and beyond, people like my parents. Folks who were terminally out of it when I was a teenager. That's the subgroup to watch.

It's not exactly a formal poll, in fact not even a poll at all, but when I'm taking older passengers to the airport, I'll usually ask how they made their travel arrangements. From there it's not as much a question of online or using a travel agent, but one of Expedia vs. Travelocity. In fact, it was my formerly tragically unhip parents that showed me how to use expedia.com to schedule a flight. What with this trend -- and the fact more people are doing things for themselves rather than going to hired help (itself a byproduct of the Internet), I'm still not sure what travel agents are doing for a living these days besides starving.

Dad teaches Internet 101 classes at a senior center in his home town. Interest has been excellent, and he was somewhat surprised that most of his students are a lot more tech-savvy than originally anticipated. His class was originally spread over six days, with the first day devoted to the extreme basics such as the keyboard, mouse, and icons. Turns out more of his students than originally anticipated have at least those basics down and are ready to hit ebay.

I like to tell folks about Dad's classes (quite proudly; he's turned out quite well), and I get a variety of responses. People my own age or younger say that's just so cool that an old guy like that is staying on the cutting edge of technology. Folks Dad's age also think that's cool, and say they're on line quite a bit themselves. Maybe enough to show Dad a trick or two.

Just for grins, I checked my email contact list, and quite a few of them are silver surfers. A 60-something retired cop. My old editor/mentor, who recently turned 60 (though he'll kill you if you remind him). A 74-year-old guitar picker. You just can't assume that because someone is older he doesn't have an email address.

Again, according to the Telegraph article, the most-visited sites for silver surfers are search engines, shopping sites, and porno sites. Really. Heather Hopkins of online analysts Hitwise (who put together the study), put it this way: "A desire to view salacious content does not decrease with age." Or, as I asked Dad in an email, "That's not part of your curriculum, is it?"

Travel pages, news sites, and investment sites are also popular with the older folks. Mom and Dad will read several newspapers on line, and they send me lots of articles. And I'll return the favor, like with this Telegraph piece.

Email is my family's favorite way of keeping contact. For us, it just makes sense. It's cheaper than a long-distance phone call, and if you forget the trappings of a display screen, software, and a keyboard for a minute, it's just like writing a letter. Back in the day we've always preferred letters to phone calls, which shows how old-school my family really is. With email, the old school goes high tech.

I do have a myspace page (actually more than one), and although it's still considered a kid site, most of my contacts are either fellow musicians or folks my own age.

Something interesting: The leading Internet research company comScore conducted an analysis of users on social networking sites in August of 2006. Their findings show that 68 percent of MySpace's users are age 25 and older, and users between 35-54 make up 40.6 percent of the MySpace visitor base. That's up 8.2 percent from 2005. The word on myspace these days is that it's, like, sooo last week, and who wants to hang out with their parents online?

I also have a Facebook account, and most of my friends, again, are around my age. We older folks are Facebooking, tweeting, hitting all the social networks, and even texting. 

There's even a social networking site for silver surfers. Really. It's called Eons, or "lovin' life on the flip side of 50". Already that should be a clue -- anyone who can tell you the origin of the term "flip side" is a likely qualifier. Think myspace for mature audiences. Membership is open to those who are 49 or older. As expected, the pages maintained by the members are not as glitzy and glittery as the typical myspace pages (some myspace pages are so loaded that even my high-speed wireless connection chokes on all the graphics).

You might expect us older folks to hold our position on the Information Superhighway (a phrase I haven't heard in years), going 25 miles per hour, peeking over the steering wheel with mudflaps dragging, But it's not necessarily so. We're running with the big dogs.

It wasn't until recently that I started using some of the more gee-whiz Internet communication options such as instant messaging. I'm getting pretty good at that, primarily from the tutelage of a long-distance friend who is half my age. I think the first time I was exposed to instant messaging was about 12 years ago through my early forays into AOL, so it's something my friend would have grown up with. But it took me a while to get the hang of it. I can also hold my own in a chat room.

I use my cell phone more for text messages than for actual voice calls, another bow to the times. I'm so geeky with the texts that I can control my blogs and email through SMS, turning my phone into a remote control.

I'll admit, though, texting doesn't come natural to me. My fingers are too wide and too cranky on cold mornings. I have to show my age somewhere.

(Updated 2010)