Idée reçue sur Facebook : qu’un truc de jeunes cons ?

Faut croire qu’il y a désormais plus de « vieux cons » alors 😀

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jul/07/facebook-socialnetworking

Older users becoming dominant on Facebook

A Facebook profile. Photograph: Chris Jackson/Getty

It started out as a social network that exploded across American college campuses – but now Facebook could be becoming the home of older internet users, according to new figures.

Statistics gleaned from the internet company suggest that users aged 35 and older are now becoming an increasingly dominant force on Facebook, usurping the school pupils and university students who made up the site’s early base.
According to an analysis by Washington, DC consulting firm iStrategy Labs – which used figures given publicly by Facebook to advertisers – the site is being quickly populated by older surfers.

The figures are based only on American users, who make up around a third of the site’s 200m users worldwide. However, they indicate that Facebook has grown by more than 70% in the last six months – adding more than 18m users over 35 in the process. This now means that a third of users are in this older age bracket, and the 35-54 year old group now constitutes Facebook’s largest demographic.

In addition, the number of American users aged 55 and over rocketed by more than 500% over the same period, to a total of 5.8m out of Facebook’s US user base of almost 72m. This high speed growth has been tempered by much slower adoption by younger users – a substantial departure from the site’s early user base.

« The most troubling statistics we’ve seen are that there are 16.5% less high school users, and 21.7% less college users, » wrote iStrategy’s Peter Corbett. « There have been rumours that these younger user groups are being alienated by their parents joining the service, and this data seems to prove it. »

Despite Corbett’s claim, the number of younger users has not fallen – merely grown less quickly than other age groups. There are now 18 million Americans from both the 18-24 and 25-34 age bracket using Facebook now, for example: six months ago the same statistics measured 17.2m and 11.2m respectively.

There are a number of potential reasons for slower adoption among the under 25s – including saturation or competition from other social networks and websites such as Twitter.

In addition other factors may be at play – at least according to Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd, who last week posited that race, gender and social class play a significant factor in the way the public views, and uses, social networking sites.

In a talk given to the Personal Democracy Forum in New York last week, Dr Boyd highlighted the disparity in the user base of MySpace and Facebook, and suggested that the migration of users from one to the other echoed the « white flight » experienced across many cities.

« Whites were more likely to leave or choose Facebook, » she said. « The educated were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. Those from wealthier backgrounds were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. Those from the suburbs were more likely to leave or choose Facebook… the fact that digital migration is revealing the same social patterns as urban white flight should send warning signals to everyone out there. »