Change and Irrelevance

Last week I had the privilege of attending a seminar on social media and mass marketing. It was sponsored by the local Power of the Arts and the Wean Foundation and ostensibly aimed at non-profits. It was moderated by Tyler Clark of Tyler Clark consulting and held at the Youngstown Business Incubator.

I went expecting a ho-hum seminar, more curious about the Incubator than the seminar topic. Was I wrong!!! The topic was fascinating, and was probably the most informative 1 1/2 hours I have spent over the last several years. Mr. Clark did an outstanding job in presenting difficult material. To often with tech savvy folks, the assumption is the person to whom they are talking is the know much more than they actually know to start out hence losing everybody's attention within the first five minutes. Mr. Clark was patient with those in attendance who obviously had only a limited grasp of how these things work, and answered more technical questions in a concise manner.

The subject matter dealt with the inter-relationship of web pages, blogs, facebook, twitter, and YouTube. Clark attempted to show how each of the above feeds off of the other, and how to develop a marketing strategy through the adept use of all of the above. Fascinating stuff, but disturbing on so many levels I can't address them in this essay, except for one which I find personally upsetting.

At the top of my list is the lack of participation in social media by seniors. 93% of all adult internet users are on Facebook. That is 800,000,000 Facebook users. But there is a huge age discrepancy. Only 31% of internet users over the age of 65 have a Facebook page. And the figure is just 52% for those over the of 55. That compares with those between the ages of 25 and 35 where it is almost 100%!!! So for seniors starting with a low internet usage to begin with, that 31% shrinks even more as a percentage of the entire population over the age of 65.

It occurred to me that some of the political turmoil we are experiencing today is a result of this lack of social media usage by those over 55. There has always been a generation gap, but as of late it has been growing by leaps and bounds. It is becoming wider and wider as our society as a whole rewards those who can keep up technologically, and absolutely discards those who won't, can't, or are unable to keep up. Witness the new report this past week stating that recording studios will cease making CD's by the end of 2013 except for special edition CD's. If you want to purchase music, you will have to be able to download it to your computer, you cell phone, you Ipod or Ipad...and the recording industry has just turned its back on the largest segment of our population with the most money. It's almost sad. In fact, it is just plain wrong.

We have heard of many American divisions: rich/poor; black/white; urban/suburban; red states/blue states. But the most disturbing to me, and certainly the most insidious, is the division between a tech savvy young generation, and a tech illiterate older generation. As the digital age rapidly propells the country into the direction where the information life blood flows through social media as opposed to the commonality of more traditional sources, we will be excluding large portions of the population from political discourse and decision making...and this is the wealthiest group, the most populous group, and the group that votes the most. That doesn't bode well for the country.

Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and blogs and URL work well for those who have access. For those that don't, Tyler Clark started the seminar with a quote from General Eric Shinseki. "If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less."

It is dangerous for seniors. It is dangerous for our country.