Older Users Hear Facebook Is Bad News [STATS]

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Does this mean "older" people aren't into Facebook? Hardly. It just means that they're more aware of negatively slanted news reports, which likely has more to do with their preferred news sources than their online habits or personal opinions.

The pollsters at YouGov BrandIndex did a pulse check on adults' perceptions of Facebook in the media using the company's "buzz score." They asked respondents, "If you've heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, was it positive or negative?" and calculated the score by subtracting negative buzz from positive buzz. Buzz scores range from 100 (totally positive news) to -100 (totally negative news).

Over the past six weeks, Facebook's buzz score for adults 35 and older has slid from 26.7 to 21.2. Over the same period of time, buzz scores from folks between the ages of 18 and 34 increased from 32.8 to 44.8.

YouGov rep Drew Kerr wrote to us, "For the 35+ demo, Facebook had below zero buzz scores as recent as late 2008 and then made an impressive ascent. But as the features change and people talk among themselves, paths diverge with the younger bracket only in the past month."

What are some of the Facebook news stories you recall hearing about lately? Did they affect your opinion of Facebook as a social network or a company at all?

[img credit: lomotar]