Social networking is no longer a teen-scene... thank the gods

Research published last week by Ofcom reveals that about 19 million people in the UK – which amounts to half of all internet users – visit Facebook, spending an average of six hours a month on the website. This is an increase from four hours in May 2008. The report also found that the proportion of 25 to 34-year-olds who said they had a social networking website grew by six percentage points in a year to 46 per cent, while the figure also rose among 35 to 54-year-olds to 35 per cent.

Ofcom also found that the younger demographic, the teens were seemingly abandoning Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, deeming the sites uncool because their parents used them. This news was greeted with the usual near hysteria in the media, who decided that kids not using Facebook, mobile social networking and everything else ‘mainstream’ was a bad thing and the golden age of social network was dead.

Surely it isn’t? I may be wrong, but if I was running a business I would want to attract me to use it as I have money. The teenagers who hang around where I live don’t, so why target them? The same applies to smartphones. While it may now be the height of uncool to have an iPhone and use apps for it (as pointed out, somewhat laboriously by the never-off-my-tv Charlie Brooker), the demographic it targets is the golden slice of society: tech savvy, monied, showy-offy and game to try anything – and game to try and find new things before their mates do, so you don’t even have to spend on marketing to them.

This same idea should apply to social networking. Everyone is still trying to find the business model for Twitter (relax, there isn’t one), when all they have to do is look at the like of Flirtomatic, which has cleverly and lucratively worked out how to make social networking pay: and it isn’t for kids.

Same with adult. Definitely not for the younger demographic, the adult market has long made social networking pay – we used to call it chat and dating, wife swapping and even swinging. The sector is also making UGC viable too.

Again it’s the grown ups that make this possible. It might be my advancing years, but why is everything targeted at the young? Most of them are in college or (currently) unemployed. When I was a student (and a Dole-ite in the holidays back in the day) I had no money to spare and got all my content – music – by taping it off the radio or other people’s records. The channels may have changed now, but the principle is the same. Roll on getting kids off social networking and hoorah for a world where the web is for grown-ups – it will also help usher in the new world order where people pay for content.