More older adults using Facebook

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - A new study shows more and more older adults are logging on to social networking sites.

A Pew Research center study shows the number of adults aged 50 and older using social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn has nearly doubled in the past year.

"The trend has been towards people 35 and over using Facebook, so the logical next group to catch on would be the next generation," said social networking expert Pablo Malavenda.

Malavenda said he wasn't surprised by the study's results.

"It makes it much easier to keep in contact with family and grandchildren and photos and read blogs, and you really sometimes don't even have to make physical contact or meet up face to face to really know what's going on," he said.

The study showed internet users aged 50 to 64 who used sites like Facebook and LinkedIn jumped from 25 percent in April 2009 to 47 percent in May 2010. For those aged 65 and older, social networkers doubled, from 13 percent to 26 percent in the same time frame.

"I'll talk to my wife and she'll mention something that one of the kids are doing. 'Oh, how'd you find out about that?' Because Tia, our eldest, is on Facebook, and Tia told her on Facebook, and about everything else that everybody else is doing because Tia passed it on, on Facebook," said 60-year-old Joe Konzer.

"My sister lives in Las Vegas, and that's how we connect, and her son lives in Phoenix and that's how we connect, so without that we wouldn't be able to connect," 58-year-old Al Balcer said.

Attitudes toward Facebook in the Lafayette area are mixed. There are the people who use it but don't love it.

"Yes there are some people, but I can count on two hands the number of people I actually communicate with on Facebook," said 50-year-old Elizabeth Vulanich.

And there are the people who love it but don't use it.

"I don't have a computer in my apartment, but my cousins do and I watch them use it, and I think it's great," said 69-year-old Lester Rardon.

And as far as Twitter goes, it's catching on a lot more slowly.

"I don't tweet. I have no idea how to do a tweet. No. I don't know how to tweet," Konzer said.

"I don't Twitter at all, although my brother's dog does," said Vulanich.

For older adults, email is still a communication staple. The study showed 92 percent of people aged 50 to 64 and 89 percent of the 65-plus crowd send or read email. More than half in each group exchange email messages almost every day.