The Pew Internet & American Life Project has come out with a fairly comprehensive look at generations and internet activity, called “Generations Online.” The report segments users by age categories (i.e., X, Y, Boomers) and looks their online activities. The data were drawn from responses by thousands of users to surveys conducted by Pew researchers between 2006 and 2008.

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project

While activities such as IM, online video or social networking appeal to younger users and e-commerce or online banking are disproportionately used by Gen X and Baby Boomers, email and search are almost equally used by all groups across the board:

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project

There’s a great deal more in the data and it’s worth a closer look if you’re a marketer or just an interested bystander and curious about empricial confirmation or debunking of perceptions of what users do or don’t do online based on their age.

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Search & Society: General | Stats: General | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News

About The Author: Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog Screenwerk, about SoLoMo issues and connecting the dots between online and offline. He also posts at Internet2Go, which is focused on the mobile Internet. Follow him @gsterling. See more articles by Greg Sterling

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