In a press release today, UKOM revealed that nearly two million more Britons are now online when compared to last year with over half of the increase coming from the over-50s.
The exact figures were that in May 2009 there were 36.9 million people online, growing to 38.8 million in the same month of 2010. Of this 5% growth, 1 million were over 50. For comparison, the World Bank reckoned there were about 61.4 million people in the UK in 2008, so that means that a little over 63% of the UK is online.
Interestingly, it was mostly men in the over 50s group, but large rises were also seen in the 12-20 and 21-34 women’s groups, possibly suggesting that they are catching up in Internet use. There’s actually a great graph in the press release showing the breakdown by age and gender.
If you want to know what the over 50s were up to, UKOM handily provide the top 10 over 50s websites, including RealAge, Flixxy, Saga, WA Shearings, Fifty Plus, FamilySearch, Hand Picked Hotels, Lurpak, Jacquie Lawson and Cruise.co.uk. That pretty much gives a snapshot of what they’re upto on the Internet.
The full press release is here (PDF).