AARP commissioned a national telephone survey of the 50+ population to gather information on this age group’s use of social media and technology and thereby better serve all Americans age 50+ through its website.

Key findings revealed:

• Two out of five (40%) adults age 50 and over consider themselves extremely (17%) or very (23%) comfortable using the Internet.
• The majority of those 50+ who access the Internet do so from a desktop computer (57%). One-quarter use a laptop (26%), 4 percent use smartphones/blackberries, 4 percent use mobile phones, and one-quarter (27%) do not access the Internet.
• Approximately one-quarter of all those 50+ use social media websites (27%) with Facebook being by far the most popular (23%).