New stats from Hitwise show that over 55s, or ‘silver surfers’, are close to becoming the largest demographic age group online.
The largest is currently the 35-44 age group, which accounted for 23.5% of internet visits in the four weeks up to 12th May. Silver surfers had 22% of visits.
Share of UK Internet Visits by Age Group, 4 weeks to 12th May 2007, 2006 and 2005. Source: Hitwise.
Hitwise's Heather Hopkins says internet use by the over 55s is consistent with other age groups – their favourite categories are search engines, Adult and Shopping and Classifieds.
Travel and news and media websites are also popular - silver surfers accounted for 27% of visits to travel sites, and 24% of news and media site visits.
The increase in usage, she says, has come from both wealthy over 55s and those on low incomes - visits from low income groups are up by 29% over the past two years, and 30% for the wealthier over 55s.
Further reading:
'Silver surfers' prefer internet to DIY and gardening
Reader comments (1)
11:43PM on 28th May 2007
I would like to ask you all for some advice and/or tips for my next project.
I have decided to create a video tutorial aimed at helping elderly people get online and make use of the Internet. I can think of thousands of subjects myself to cover but I am trying to keep it as simple as possible.
I would greatly appreciate any ideas or requests for tutorials or subjects to cover that might make the whole WWW experience for the elderly surfer a more easy and pleasurable experience. If you are having difficulty performing certain tasks online then share, your frustration and maybe I could cover that subject in a tutorial.
Looking forward to all of your idea's
Kind regards
Elder Lee
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