One in five Irish pensioners ‘like’ Facebook

Ireland has a growing number of ‘silver surfers’ as figures show almost one in five people over the age of 65 now have a Facebook account.

The latest quarterly report by pollsters Ipsos MRBI shows the age profile of those using social networking sites like Facebook is changing month by month.

Long the preserve of 15 to 24 year olds — 93% of whom have a Facebook account — the poll shows that 17% of Irish people over the age of 65 have signed up to the social networking giant — slightly down from 19% in May.

In the last three months, Twitter account ownership has soared 47% with more than one in five adults using the site.

But it’s not just the number of tweeters that’s on the rise. Since May, the numbers setting up a social networking account of any kind has increased from 58% to 63%.

Ipsos MRBI has been tracking social networking habits here since Feb 2011.

Given the large numbers in the economy looking for a job, it’s no surprise that the popularity of LinkedIn has also continued apace.

The number of people signing up to the site grew 39% in the last quarter, with 18% now having an account. This compares with just 13% in May.

Despite the large spikes in the use of Twitter and LinkedIn, both continue to lag behind Facebook in popularity.

The proportion with a Facebook account rose by 3% to 56% in the last quarter. Although the change is not hugely significant, when compared to the figure for May it nonetheless indicates that Facebook account ownership is growing, albeit at half the rate of growth between February and May of this year.

The proportion of Facebook users here who use the site every day has increased from 53% in May to 58% in August.

Other social networking sites such as Bebo, Foursquare, and Google+ also registered increases in users.

Interestingly, it seems recent concerns around Facebook’s attitude to privacy have not impacted hugely upon its popularity here.

Last week, the company agreed to delete some data collected from its EU users by the middle of next month.

The company, which has its international headquarters in Dublin, could be fined up to €100,000 if it does not comply with the orders from the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) within four weeks.

Facebook was warned last year to make widespread changes by the office of the commissioner, following privacy complaints made by lobby group Europe v Facebook to the DPC.

These included tightening its privacy practices and deleting unneeded data sooner.

The DPC carried out an audit on Facebook Ireland which is responsible for millions of users outside the US and Canada.

Social event

Percentage of people with a social networking account (change since May 2012)

Bebo — 10% (+3%)

Facebook — 56% (+3%)

Linkedin — 18% (+5%)

Twitter — 22% (+7%)

Google+ — 16% (+3%)

Foursquare — 1% (no change)

None of these/none — 36% (-6%)

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