Silver Surfers – Getting on Board with Social Networking

How a media-morphosis was begun

Back in 1967, Stan Lee – arguably the most famous name in comic books – came up with a brand new superhero for Marvel Comics: The Silver Surfer.

With strength, stamina and the ability to wield the “Cosmic Power” (a unique superpower which allowed the absorption and manipulation of the universe’s ambient energy to perform feats of derring-do) and with his gleaming silver surfboard in place, the Silver Surfer flew at the speed of light, transcending the barriers of time and space to save the world.
Well, basically.

Sound familiar?

It should; it’s an apt metaphor for the rise in interest and rapid adoption by Baby Boomers of social networking, where the traditional methods of connecting and communicating have been ramped up to warp speed. For a generation of natural communicators (from the quaint old art of letter-writing, to the telephone, to now the Internet) in just the past 12 months Boomers have enthusiastically added social media to their always-on communications arsenal.

When Boomers find something they like, they don’t just pick at it; as we’re now learning, they devour it, leaving younger generations in the metaphorical dust as they manipulate all this newly adopted ambient energy to connect and engage with one another as never before. Nowadays when a Boomer has a casual chin-wag, they may well be doing it online with a complete stranger on the other side of the world, or perhaps in an adjacent neighbourhood, sharing that conversation with another 20 or 30 new virtual friends who share their passions if not their physical space.

Facebook is the perfect example. The fastest growing audience of the wildly popular site is now women 55 plus; in less than a year, Boomer women increased their membership by more than 175%. There are now at least twice as many women over 50 involved in social networking as there are girls under 18 – and 55 plus men aren’t far behind. The newly-enthused demographic is piling onto YouTube, MySpace and Twitter like diners at a half-price smorgasbord, and accessing dating sites, blogs and classmate search engines at an equally tremendous rate.

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