Did you know….
According to the 2008 report, "Matures 62+ On the Internet: An Overlooked Audience," over a third of the Mature population (aged 62+) are connected and collectively spend almost three-quarters of a billion minutes a day on the Internet.
You can see the entire report here: http://www.dynamiclogic.com/na/research/whitepapers/docs/Focalyst_InsightReport_Apr08.pdf
A friend also sent me a link to an organization that is looking to hire an "ageing consultant". Imagine!
I find these latest reports particularly interesting in light of the common misconception that older folk just aren't technologically savvy enough to be considered viable employees in today's market.
My gosh, can it be? Someone is actually recognizing that mature people – those of us who have "snow on the roof" – are actually out here mixing it up with the rest of society? We're actually being discovered?!
Marketers, trying to figure out how to tap into this lush new market, are actually trying to reach us and find out what makes us tick.
Guess they haven't figured out yet, that as long as we live we have pretty much the same interests and needs as everyone else. We may like to sit on the front porch in our rockers reading a novel on a hot summer afternoon on occasion. But that's certainly not the limit of our interests and capabilities. We garden and create and surf the net right along with the best of them. We enjoy good food and travel and being financially independent and productive. We are intensely concerned about the price of gas, food shortages and the ecology. And we do know how to play.
But, when people have gone down as many different roads as we elders have to get where we are today, we tend to be a very diverse group. Anyone who wants to understand what makes us tick is going to have to understand that we aren't statistics. We have set our priorities based on lessons learned along the way. We make our own choices based on what our individual interests are – not on hype or emotional hot buttons. We've learned to think for ourselves, thank you very much.
Gosh, I sure will be happy when the statisticians and marketers finally learn that classifying people and cramming us into neat packages just doesn't work. And I'll be happier still, when, finally the older set is once again welcomed into the workplace so they can – if they choose – buy some of those luxuries the marketers want to sell them.