Technology and uptake is not just about the young #demographics

It really should be put to rest, this idea that the younger you are the more adaptable, motivated and interested you are in today's technology. It's assumed that new tech uptake is aligned (magically) with your label: ie Baby boomers vs Gen X or Y or even Next; when these are really just vaguely useful pop culture demographic labels with little or no correlation with anything, other than age and raw number.

Take this for example: Radwanick concluded that current assumptions about who might use a technology first might need to be reconsidered. “Not only teenagers and college students can be counted among the technologically inclined,” she said. “With those age 25 and older representing a much bigger segment of the population than the under 25 crowd, it might help explain why Twitter has expanded its reach so broadly so quickly over the past few months.”

Rather than assume that the young will drive new tech uptake, look instead at the real drivers (and/or impediments to uptake) like access, need, wealth, depth of responsibilities and available time. These things can occur at almost any age, and to varying degrees - but we can generalise a bit about who typically has a need for a short-message, quick contact microblogging service; who has the time, or lack of time to use it; and who has the connectivity and hardware platforms to make it happen. And who's mature enough to appreciate it, too.

Quick and dirty assumptions don't always stack up.