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In July of 2006, The Pew Internet & American Life Project published a survey of bloggers titled, A Portrait of the Internet’s New Storytellers [pdf] that is packed with facts and figures.
Fifty-four percent of bloggers are under age 30, reported Pew, and 14 percent are between the ages of 50 and 64. Just a tiny two percent are 65 and older.
But our numbers are growing. When I started my blog about aging late in 2003, I could find only about a dozen other bloggers older than 50. Nowadays, I can barely keep my Elderbloggers blogroll current; I find new ones every day.
Although other surveys show that elderbloggers generally tend to spend more time than younger ones honing our writing before we hit the publish button, we are equally diverse in our topics and styles. Let me introduce you to some of the women:
Naomi Dagen Bloom blogs at A Little Red Hen. She is a serious feminist and political activist in the westside New York City style, an early advocate of kitchen composting and condoms (not necessarily at the same time) and a knitter extraordinaire.
I first met Claude via email when she asked if I would mind if she made a version of my blog banner for her then-new blog. Since then, Blogging in Paris has become one of the most online due, in large part, to her gorgeous photographs of her home town.
Lucy of Golden Lucy’s Spiral Journal is one of the oldest bloggers on the internet – mid-eighties – and she has a million stories to tell. She’s also got a sharp tongue and a sharp sense of humor that will have you falling off your blog chair.
ML, a fellow Mainer, blogs at Full Fathom Five, often about books, about teaching English as a second language and, recently, teaching herself Chinese to help in that ESL endeavor. She’s literate, thoughtful and one of the best writers in the blogosphere.
Some of you may know Joy of Joy of Six blog as she is also the mother of Blogher co-founder Jory Des Jardins. Joy makes you wonder if we ought to be very careful how we name our children because she so lives up to hers. Her joy with life comes through even hard times and disasters like her massive leak in the middle of Christmas preparations. Oh, and she also writes the best poems you ever read about the everyday living.
Elaine of Kalilily Time is an elderblogger in more ways than one: she’s been doing it since 2002. It doesn’t matter if she’s commenting on the news, discussing politics, puncturing pretensions, discussing the full-time caregiving of her mother or just having fun, she’s smart, witty and I always learn something new at her blog.
Jill Fallon blogs at Legacy Matters – a nice pun considering that she covers matters of death – medical, legal, literary, grieving, last words, funerals and best of all, the weird and wonderful ways we celebrate or otherwise acknowledge dying. If you think this isn’t a topic for you, think again. In Jill’s hands, it’s brilliant.
Maya’s Granny blog is filled with wittily-told episodes from Granny’s life past and present. This is some of the best storytelling in blogdom about her youth, kids, pets, politics and more. A special voice.
There are many more, but I know you’re busy with the holidays and I’ll tell you about other elderbloggers you should meet sometime in the new year.
* Contributing Editor Ronni Bennett also blogs at Time Goes By - What it’s really like to get older.
