Facebook is older than it’s ever been, and now it’s even older.
iStrategy Labs- the folks responsible for the ads in your Facebook sidebar, pay close attention to demographic patterns on Facebook. And while the group found that less than a million users 55 or over were using Facebook back in January of 2009, more than 5.8 million users fell into that bracket as of July 4th- an increase of 514%.
To further old-ify Facebook, iStrategy Labs also noted that use by college and high school students had dropped 22% and 17% respectively. A long running pop-culture joke, iStrategy labs posited that perhaps younger users were genuinely abandoning the service due to shyness in the presence of older relatives.
However, it was unclear in the report whether events such as graduation or merely disassociating with a school in general were taken into account when tabulating the figures regarding students. If so, it may actually bode well if Facebook hopes to retain younger users, as it could indicate that the service has transcended academic boundaries and is just viewed as an all-purpose social network.
Age notwithstanding, there was one more demographic embracing Facebook in a surprisingly large number- growth in Atlanta, GA jumped 142%.
