Baby boomers and boob tubes

Baby boomers, you and me, seniors, are in front of the computer and the television more than any other age group. Boomers rack up a pretty impressive 30-40 hours per week, as much time as we spend or used to spend on our jobs. Oh man we could be in trouble. Or maybe we’re just enjoying our downtime.

Sure, we watch TV, but we baby boomers go online to use email. Surf for travel tips, buy things, and more and more we go after the social networking sites like Eon, Twitter and Face Book. My casual, unscientific survey found that most people over 40 or so don’t like MySpace – it’s too complicated and just too big.

Baby boomers are the largest group of Internet users, and baby boomer women out surf men. There are, according to the census,almost 100 million of us. Eight thousand more turn 60 each day!

The SEO Diva online says that 50% of baby boomers feel their lives would lose quality if they couldn’t access the web for a single day. But only 20% of us feel that web sites are targeted toward us and fewer than one fifth of us feel connected to the ad pitches we see. Not terribly bright on the part of advertisers.

Again, not scientifically, I asked among boomers I know and my readers in various publications. That focus group says lots of us buy stuff online. I know I do – it’s my preferred market place. Boomers who don’t feel secure shelling out dollars online at least do preliminary shopping online to figure out where deals are.

All of us go to the web first when thinking real estate. Many of us are learning, or already know how to create content and manage it online.

If I ‘m drawing a conclusion from the info I’m gatheirng it’s this: Baby boomers are online in droves. We have money and we spend it. If web sites are designed to address our needs, with highly visual designs and readable text, we’ll come. There is a huge niche out there untapped.

There’s also another boom booming – some 68 million Americans coming up behind us – those people nearing 40.

Perhaps we baby boomers, seniors and retirees should consort and take over the web, targeting ourselves as an audience and bringing those younger folks along. Wouldn’t that constitute a fascinating second career?