An article on Mashable today discussed a study by Pew Internet that broke down the online activities by age groups, starting with as young as 18 and working up to 74+.
Many of the results were not surprising. Email was an almost uniform activity across every age group, as were searching and getting news online. Also, younger individuals were more likely to play games online, IM and use social networks while their slightly older cohorts were more likely to visit government sites and check financial information.
All in all, the younger the respondent, the more activities they likely did online, though it seemed almost no one was using virtual worlds.
However, one thing that did catch some off guard was the decline in blogging. Not only was blogging an unpopular activity across all age groups, less than 10% said they blogged and less than half said they read blogs (with younger respondents having the highest percentage), there was a marked decline from the previous year's survey.
Many will undoubtedly look at this and see dark things in the future for blogging. However, the truth is likely much different and there are very simple reasons for the numbers and why they aren't very important.
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