Parents have been shown to use Google+ more than their offspring, according to a new study from Experian Hitwise. As CNET reports, the study suggests that suburban parents have found Google+ an appealing service. Grouped in the “Kids and Cabernet” group, the study describes these users as “prosperous, middle-aged married couples living child-focused lives in affluent suburbs”. The other main group, “Colleges and Cafes”, contains teenagers and college students in particular. The study was composed of 10,000,000 internet users. It is important to note that, therefore, the study is not conclusive but provides only a guideline for the types of users most regularly encountered on the service.
Interestingly, as part of the study, Experian Hitwise composed a word cloud for the groups. These word clouds can be seen on their blog post, for the “Kids and Cabernets” group, as well as the “Colleges and Cafes” group. Their results suggest that the suburban parents could make up 2.9% of visits to Google+. College students provide around 0.7% of hits on the service. How these figures were calculated is not particularly clear, but they provide a benchmark at least.
Google+ released as a closed social network initially, with invites being highly sought after. Releasing on June 28th, Google+ remains invite-only with no current timeframe for a public release of the service. According to the Wikipedia page, the dominant group on the site are aged 25-34, with an overwhelmingly male populace of 71.24%. Google+ popularity skyrocketed, due to the limited nature of the service.