Well over half (58%) of older Americans say social media is where they find out about new goods and services, according to new research. An even hgher proportion agree with the proposition that “if I were selling a product to people like me, I would definitely use social media to tell people about it” and 46% say it provides them with advertising that is
relevant to them. But, worryingly perhaps, 36% say they use it to keep up with current events. In its survey, medialogic questioned people aged 63 – 75, splitting them into two groups, the younger up to 68. Three quarters (74%) overall said Facebook was the social media platform where they spent the most time, but while 23% of the younger cohort said they had spent more time on it in the past year, a much higher 37% had spent less. Television remained the top channel for new product discovery with 59% overall, though that was down from 74% when the same research was conducted in 2025. And the number of active AI users was up by 18 percentage points at 34%. A huge majority (85%) use YouTube, with 62% watching instructional videos. The survey’s executive summary notes: “The media habits of older adults have been shifting faster than the industry’s assumptions about them. Each year, this audience moves further into digital confidence, deeper into mobile behavior, and closer to AI adoption – and this shift is becoming more expensive to ignore.”
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