Baby boomers read more online content than millennials
A recent study reviews the content consumption behavior of different generations
Fractl and Buzzstream recently conducted a study on how Millennials, Gen X-ers and Baby Boomers consume content online. Stereotypically, Millennials are the main focus of digital content, but this study shows that Baby Boomers spend more hours per week consuming digital content than Millennials and Gen-Xers.
According to the study, Millennials and Gen-Xers spend about 5-10 hours per week consuming online content, and Baby Boomers spend 20+ hours per week consuming online content. This is especially useful information for healthcare organizations as most service lines target this demographic. Here are some more insights from the study on online content consumption among the different generations:
- The most popular time frame when Millennials and Gen-Xers consume online content is from 8:00-11:59 PM
- The most popular time frame when Baby Boomers consume online content is from 9:00-11:59 AM
- The most popular device for consuming online content across all three generations is a laptop, followed closely by a desktop computer
- Millennials are about as likely to consume online content on a desktop as a mobile phone
- All three generations prefer blog posts. Their least favorite type of online content is white papers
- All three generations prefer to consume content that is about 300 words long
- The most popular content genre consumed by all three generations is entertainment
- The second most popular content genre for Gen-Xers is healthy living
- All three generations use Facebook most often to share online content
This study shows that content is a viable marketing tactic to reach all three generations. Blog posts are generally quick and easy to generate compared to other types of content. Plus they’re a little more casual and allow for an entertainment factor that all three generations respond to. Schedule posts in the late morning to reach Baby Boomers and during prime time to reach Gen-Xers and Millennials.