Age is no barrier in social networks: why you need to ignore the statistics

I’m fed up with talk of Gen Y vs. Gen X.  I’m bored with hearing how young people are ignoring the past and building their own future.  I groan every time I see a report that says young adults shouldn’t use social networks because they’re for old people.

It’s all nonsense.

photo by 1Happysnapper

photo by 1Happysnapper

Social networking features on websites we all know about: Facebook, YouTube, Myspace, Twitter.  The list goes on.  And on.  We participate in conversations, follow events, state our opinions, collaborate and create.  So much of what we do online is now about us.

I don’t appreciate reports that suggest how pointless a service is because a particular group of people don’t use it.  In the US, all social media is apparently dominated by people aged 35-44.  Time and again, we’re told that Twitter is not used by students and that it’s an older person’s hangout.

The average age of a Twitter user in the US is 39.1 years.  What’ll surprise you are the average ages of some other popular services:
Myspace – 31.8 years
Facebook – 38.4 years
LinkedIn – 44.3 years

Not one social network studied showed dominance amongst the 18-24 age range.  On every occasion a different age range reigned.

You might have been put off by Twitter in the past after reading that the average user is seemingly so old.  But I expect you already have a Facebook account.  What student doesn’t?  Will you stop using Facebook now you know the average user is nearly 40?  Exactly.

In fact, there are so many mature students going into Higher Education that they may soon outnumber those who traditionally go to university straight after school.  Does that make you want to drop your course because you think it’s not so relevant for your age group?  Didn’t think so.

So just for a moment, ignore the averages.  As Sheamus on Twittercism says, “the ‘average person’ has one testicle and one breast”.

Age should not be the reason you do anything in particular.  No matter what the averages are, there are people from all age groups spending time on social networks.  They have different backgrounds, different experiences, different expertise, different reasons for being, different interests, and so on.  Age (and any statistical average) shouldn’t matter a bit.  If you feel you can only associate with a certain group of people on a service, use more than one service until it covers everyone you need to speak with.

While Facebook doesn’t particularly go beyond ‘real-life’ friends, other services reach much further.  For instance, the majority of the people I follow on Twitter are not people I’ve met in the outside world.  I speak to people younger than me and older than me.  These are amazing people that I wouldn’t have found based on statistics or a brief five minutes playing with Twitter.

Understanding how to make best use of a tool takes time.  But it’s time well spent.  No matter what statistics are thrown at you, there’s no way of telling what use it could be to you unless you try.  The information would have to be strongly against you wanting to bother…and even then the information may not be supportive of your own unique position.

Anyone who refuses to talk and network with people outside their own age is crazy.  It’s not how people go about life.

So the next time you see someone ridiculing a service based on the average age of users, or any other irrelevant statistic, consider the possibilities beyond that.  Many important business people, academics and student leaders are avid Twitter users.  So are many rising stars in pretty much every field.  They are keen to engage with you and help you learn, develop, and move on.  And they’re keen to engage with you to help them learn, develop, and move on.

Are you happy to pass by offers like that?  Right now, people all over the world are listening and ready to help.  Ignore that at your peril.

Instant Insecurity and Its Powerful Impact

Insecurity can hit even the most confident person when they least expect it.  It’s more common than you probably think.

photo by Amanda M Hatfield

photo by Amanda M Hatfield

After I left a comment at the great business and branding blog, Conversation Agent, the author replied with something that covers all walks of life.

Valeria Maltoni said:

“Insecure people think that they can have more power when they stab others in the back. No room for empathy there and nothing you can do to help them see that they, in effect, shoot themselves in the foot. As humans we’re all connected. It all comes back.”

Valeria makes a great point.  I hadn’t considered it like this before, but I’ve noticed behaviour of this kind time and again.

So often, wonderful people change dramatically as a personal issue or setback tips them into insecurity.  Like a switch going off in their head, an accepting and caring personality is suddenly replaced by a cynical, less forgiving one.

I’m sure this is mainly down to a defence mechanism kicking in that becomes more attacking over time.  And it doesn’t take long.

This type of sudden insecurity, different to a general lack of confidence, is not easily fixed.  Since it takes a specific event to trigger this alternative behaviour, deeper problems will likely shield that person from general help.

Such a damaging change in a person causes equally damaging changes to other people’s opinions of that person.  Friendships break down and new problems arise.  It only takes one event to start a chain of reaction that’s far reaching.  Such upheaval can impact upon far more people than it directly occurred to in the first place.

I can’t help but feel sad for the person who’s been damaged.  They may cause numerous others (including previously good friends) great pain and anguish, but at a time when they need greater security and love, they force loved ones away.

As Valeria says, you can’t stop them “shoot themselves in the foot”.  And so the vicious cycle continues.  Such a tragedy.

What are your thoughts on this?

Will You Be a Fantastic Failure or Awesome Underachiever?

Is it better to ‘underachieve’ or to ‘fail’?

The Harvard Business Review Blog recently talked about the best type of failure to learn from.  The article states: “The essential insight is that partial failures are far more valuable than total breakdowns.”

photo by KungPaoCajun

photo by KungPaoCajun

So is failure too much to learn anything?

Apparently an element of success is necessary to allow greater success to follow.  Therefore, underperformance is preferable to complete failure.

In my mind, the words ‘failure’ and ‘underachiever’ are too subjective to differentiate.  The HBR piece even admits, “underperformance is a form of failure”.

This being the case, how prepared should we be to fail?  If we can’t answer that, how do we know how far to go before we’ve failed too much to learn anything from?

Stefan of Study Successful (who I mentioned just recently on here), told me that it’s important to fail:

“That is the way you will learn things! Underperform will take a lot of time to actually learn something…Failure will be a slap in the face, forces you to learn faster. How do you notice underperformance?”

Stefan explores the matter further at his blog.

As I see it, failure can be a slap, but only if you’re prepared to accept it.  The same can be said for underperformance.  If you’re in denial, you won’t let anything slap you down.  You must accept the fact that problems don’t just belong to other people.

Once you start the process of identifying personal weaknesses and admitting shortcomings, you’re in a better position to start learning from all sorts of failure.  In terms of the HBR piece, they were discussing the state of physical buildings.  While they make pertinent points, the situation isn’t as simple for our subjective and chaotic minds.  Physical forces are certainly unpredictable, but in completely different ways to the brain.

By the nature of who we are, we all make mistakes every day.  You can’t stop making them, but you can look at how to make sense of those mistakes, how to recognise mistakes, and how far you’re willing to accept your own mistakes in order to change.

The subjectiveness of failure brings up all sorts of opinions and ideas:

  • Seth Godin – “If you spend your days avoiding failure by doing not much worth criticizing, you’ll never have a shot at success.”
  • Daniel H. Pink – “Most people are more frightened of failure than of mediocrity. It should be the reverse.”
  • David Rogers – “Definitions of failure effectively put it as the opposite of success, being unsuccessful. However, failure is a far more emotive word.”
  • Ririan – “All it takes is for you to have the courage to fail once in a while.”
  • Michael J. Formica – “…we all possess the potential to rise from the ashes of our own defeat, if we can get out of our own way long enough to see what lessons that defeat has wrought.”

How do you learn from your mistakes?  What level of failure are you best at working with?  And would you rather develop after underachieving or totally failing?

Your achievements are stepping stones.

Earlier this month, I was listening to Phill Jupitus co-presenting a breakfast show on student radio.  I was listening out of curiosity.

photo by Andy McMillan

photo by Andy McMillan

Lucky I did tune in, because I also got to hear Jupitus in conversation with James Ricci, president of Bournemouth University Students’ Union.

Ricci mentioned that being involved in SU and university activities is helpful to a graduate CV in an age when a degree alone isn’t qualification enough to enter the job market convincingly.

He’s absolutely right.  So many people go to uni now that you have to do more than pass a degree course for employers to show an interest.

You don’t have to be president of a Students’ Union in order for your CV to shine, but you do need to show your achievements over the course of your degree.  Yes, you studied for a few years, but what else did you do?

Even accounting for the hours spent on independent study, there’s a lot of time left over.  Take away regular (but not TOO regular) leisure time and there should still be room to stand out.  Whatever your subject is.

By ‘stand out’, I don’t mean like a sore thumb.  Not unless that’s one of your endearing qualities…!

You should volunteer, participate in activities, have stories that identify you as a unique person, and so on.  Through this, you’ll notch up various successes worthy of mention.

Success isn’t limited to gold medallists, elected SU officers, student leaders, and so on.  Any achievement is a stepping stone that you should be proud of.  Possible achievements and activities worth mentioning include:

  • Clubs/Societies you’ve joined;
  • Clubs/Societies you’ve made a difference in;
  • Clubs/Societies you’ve helped set up yourself
  • Part-time employment;
  • Online achievements that you founded, such as non-personal blogs, websites, professional networks, etc.;
  • Sporting achievements;
  • Voluntary stints;
  • Uni events you assisted in (paid or not);
  • Senior Student and outreach roles;
  • Charity work;
  • Relevant trade associations & professional groups you’re an active member of;
  • Campaigns you played a part in (unless controversial);
  • Personal hobbies & activities that go beyond casual interest (unless controversial 😛 ).

Three achievements stand out in particular in my own student past:

  1. I was elected a Final Year Representative;
  2. I was a Senior Student for a year;
  3. I was a founding member of an English Society.

I mention these not because I did them for my CV.  I’ll be honest, I wasn’t thinking much about it at the time.  I did these things because I wanted to.

The student representative position was mentioned in passing to me.  It sounded interesting and I felt it would enable me to see (and act) ‘behind the scenes’, as well as speaking on behalf of fellow students.  The Senior Student position was a paid position and it helped me take up something more relevant, useful and exciting to me than a part-time job.  It also meant I could live on campus on my final year with Freshers.  I got to experience the first year again AND tuck in to my dissertation.  Win!  As for the English Society, my Academic Advisor suggested it to me and a few friends.  We liked the idea, so we started the ball rolling.  It wasn’t huge at first, but we managed minor successes, and the society grew in subsequent years.  If it wasn’t for an initial push, there would have been nothing.

So I can mention these achievements to highlight various responsibilities and actions, yet the intention wasn’t just to look better on paper.  You’re either in a position where you’ve already got some achievements worth mentioning, or you’ve got the time to experience more before you graduate.

What could you mention?  Think hard.  Something you may not consider an achievement may be more important than you think.  If you’re still left struggling, it’s not too late.  Start building a portfolio of achievements today.  As I said just a couple of posts ago, “You have the power to stretch out wherever you want“.