Age shall not weary them!

Published : 13 February 2009

One of the most potent  myths about the social networking revolution is that it is solely a young person's game. The notion that it is only a matter of time before the Facebook generation's habits of online interaction take over the universe.

Useful correctives include the long established Silver Circles established by UK over 50s leisure and insurance provider Saga, where gardeners and ex-service men and women have been interacting successfully and - an important word coming up! - sustainably for some years.

Ithaka Research's recently (Current Models of Scholarly Communication, ARL, November 2008) published study of academic behaviour in the US made the following observation viz. that there was no evidence that younger professors were making more use of the new digital resources, including those manifestations of social networking than older professors.

So, also see Jeff da Cagna's wonderful reflection on "the Benjamin Button paradox" (http://www.principledinnovation.com/blog/) where he observes that social networking users will get older and may have better uses for their time.

All of which reinforces our view that social networking takes time, that it must confer real benefits to users, or ultimately many of these exciting new experiments will fade into disuse.