baby boomers

Glass half full -- or half empty? Surprise! This new AARP study about Social Media and the Internet overrides previous assumptions about the 50-64 age range and comfort level with the Internet. Let's count just 40% of boomers as a fit with that description:17% indicate they are extremely comfortable and 23% are very comfortable.  Only 26% access the Internet via a laptop and only 4% through smart phones or cell phones -- 57% use a desktop computer.

Lots of detail about the under-65 crowd.  We are a society so consumed by age bracketing and labels, you'd think there was enough data to meet all the needs of marketers.

Another week, this time a look at the future of healthy aging. Yesterday kicked off the first of a two-year Think Tank initiative sponsored by Philips through its Center for Health and Well-Being. The purpose of this Think Tank is to consider and flesh out ideas about what it means globally to age successfully -- with implications about future requirements for policy, health systems, and technology use.

Socially and personally, information access empowers.  BCS (once known as the British Computer Society) published an interesting report this month called "The Information Dividend: Can IT Make You Happier?" This study of 35,000 examines the relationship between access to information and the means of getting it with responders' life satisfaction.