Some interesting stats were released last month by ThirdAge and JWT Boom about Baby Boomers and social media. According to the study, Americans over 40 years old haven’t jumped headlong into social media and social networking. Only 22% access social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, or LinkedIn and 67% said they have “little or no interest” writing blogs.

I don’t know if anyone is surprised by these stats. The original report took a really negative spin on this study but I think it bears some perspective. The Boomer generation is so large (78 million) that 22% represents over 17 million people. That’s 17 million pretty hip folks who remember where they were when JFK was assassinated (or…for the youngest Boomers, saw Star Wars when it was a new release in the theaters.) Another thing to think about is that it’s not as big a deal that only 33% are interested in writing blogs. There are still almost 26 million Boomers who have some interest in writing blogs and we know from Forrester Research that about half of Boomers read blogs.

Perhaps the most interesting thing from the study was the concern over privacy on social networking sites. About half of the study’s respondents “cited concerns over privacy and having personal information on the web.” The current generation of youth and young adults don’t think much about privacy so that may have as much to do as anything with their rapid adoption of social networking…and the subsequent limitations to its adoption among Boomers.

The bottom line is Boomers represent a massive portion of the population and control 83% of consumer spending in our country so I wouldn’t go writing them off in social media and social networking circles just yet. Sure, they may get on board a little later, but give them a break…if sixty really is the new forty, they still have time.

A few weeks ago comScore came out with some new online video stats that said:

• U.S. Internet users viewed 11.5 billion online videos during March, 2008, representing a 13% gain from February, 2008 and a 64% gain from March, 2007.
• 139 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 83 videos per viewer in March, 2008.
• 73.7% of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
• 84.8 million viewers watched 4.3 billion videos on YouTube.com (50.4 videos per viewer).
• The average online video duration was 2.8 minutes.
• The average online video viewer watched 235 minutes of video.

Now, I watch my fair share of videos every week. I’ve noticed my online video viewing used to only be the short YouTube variety but it’s considerably more now that Hulu has come along and supplemented what used to be “TV time” in the evenings.

What struck me recently is that I’m increasingly forgetting that I’m watching a TV when in fact I am. I’ve become so used to the online video experience that I have to remind myself that I’m not at a computer when I’m just watching a television. I don’t know how or when this transition occurred but it was like it just struck me one day when I realized these five things while watching TV…and I’m a little embarrassed by a few of them but here they are…

1. I was was expecting the screen saver to come on after 15 minutes.
2. I was expecting an instant message to pop up.
3. I wanted to have different channels open on multiple tabs.
4. I wanted to minimize the screen to do something else.
5. I double clicked a button on the remote control.

So what’s my self diagnosis on this? Well, for starters I am forced to admit that I’m a computer geek. There’s no denying it any longer. When I’m thinking about opening tabs on TV I know I’m stepping into geekdom. It appears I’ve transitioned into the multi-tasking, half attentive, mix-work-and-play kind of guy I never thought I’d be. I don’t know when this happened, but it happened. I also realize that I’m just now in a place that a generation behind me has been for a while already. They already spread their attention thinly between simultaneous mediums. I’m not assuming this is all good…but I think it is reality.

I don’t exactly know where this leaves us, but for me it’s been a realization of my own shift in video consumption and application. As online video continues to expand both in adoption and penetration, I expect others in my age range and older will come to some similar realizations if they haven’t already. The online video experience will simply be our video experience in the days to come. I think the need to even refer to “online video” will be antiquated within the next few years and perhaps at that time most of the things I wanted to do above will be commonly available in some fashion from the standard TV experience…except for screen saver and double clicking the remote control.