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Dick Stroud is the founder of 20plus30, a marketing strategy consultancy specialising in the 50 plus market. He is the UK’s leading expert on using interactive channels to communicate with the over-50s market.

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50-Plus Marketing

News, views and opinions about the most powerful group of consumers - the 50-plus market.

Monday, February 01, 2010

Are you a digital adult or digital novice – Wells Fargo has the answer

Wells Fargo has been doing some research about digital literacy. Apparently we all fall into one of three groups.

Digital Adults - people who use advanced online tools for daily tasks, interaction and entertainment

Digital Novices - people with a general understanding of online tools who use them to manage basic tasks, but don’t interact with others online or manage complex tasks on the web

Digital Teens - who fall in between novices and adults?

In the UK we have 10,000,000 people who are not connected to the Internet. I guess they are Digital Babies?

The “Adult Group,” digitally speaking, is not twenty-somethings but thirty-somethings. While twenty-somethings led in the use of advanced online tools for entertainment, with such activities as watching television online and social networking, thirty-somethings are more likely to use advanced online photo and video technologies, career networking services, and financial management services.

A similar pattern emerges with banking and managing finances online.

The survey apparently shows that Youth is loosely correlated with digital adulthood and that digital sophistication generally declined with age.

This is all interesting stuff but it totally ignores the main thing that determines the type of Internet use – education. This applies to all ages.

I suspect this PR research is more to do with getting people to the Wells Fargo site, to find out their digital age, than to extending our understanding about the segmentation of Web use. Dick Stroud

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3 Comments:

Anonymous Dropship Products said...

Good survey. As people grow, their net dependency reduces, I feel. Moreover, as technology advances, it becomes difficult for the senior lot to keep track of it.

6:30 AM  
Anonymous Ron said...

I believe this completely. I know that for me, technology is everything.
GeriCareFinder.com is a place where Digital Novices, and Digital Adults, & everyone else can search for Senior Care free-of-charge.
Visit www.GeriCareFinder.com and set-up a free My GeriCare account today!

1:13 AM  
Anonymous Eric Schubert said...

Hi Dick,

I agree with your take on the Wells Fargo research. Unbiased survey information I've found useful on internet usage across the ages comes from The Pew Research Institute on the Internet and American Life at www.pewinternet.org. One caveat: It's only U.S. research.

Eric Schubert
Ecumen
www.changingagingblog.org

11:42 PM  

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