• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, August 1, 2006

Consumers between the ages of 18 and 26 are spearheading an array of online activities including social computing and online banking, according to a new study released Monday by Forrester Research.

The study, "The State of Consumers and Technology: Benchmark 2006," found that members of Gen Y tend to spend average of 12.2 hours online each week--28 percent more than their Gen-X counterparts, who are ages 27 to 40. The Gen Y-ers also clearly dominated social networking sites, and were more likely than their older counterparts to stream or download video and movies, use voice-over-Internet protocol, sign up for online personals, engage in online gaming and gambling, and listen to podcasts. Specifically, members of Gen Y are three times as likely as Gen X-ers to use social networking, twice as likely to visit blogs and 50 percent more likely to send instant messages.

But, further up the generational ladder, seniors 62 and older were more likely to engage in some online activities than other age groups. For instance, people older than 62 are more likely than boomers to receive photos via e-mail, and lead every other cohort in checking stocks online.

The Forrester study documents the complex interaction between online activity and offline purchases, especially among Gen Y consumers. According to Forrester, almost 40 percent of Gen Y respondents said they "like to research products online and purchase them offline," followed closely by Gen X. By contrast, just 30 percent of "younger boomers" (ages 41 to 50) and less than 25 percent of "older boomers" (ages 51 to 61) report the same habit.

Gen X-ers lead the demographic groups for online retail. Last year, Gen X households accounted for over one-third of all online purchases, compared to Younger Boomers, accounting for about a fourth, and Older Boomers, who account for about a fifth. Gen Y trailed with less than one-tenth of the total.

Forrester also reported some potentially grim news for AOL--noting that it's "the only search engine used by more seniors and older boomers than Gen Y-ers and Gen X-ers." According to Forrester, 25 percent of the younger cohort use Google exclusively, versus 20 percent of older boomers and seniors; meanwhile, 4 percent of the younger cohort use AOL exclusively, versus 8 percent of the older group. Both cohorts also showed significant overlap between Google and Yahoo.

Overall, according to a recent study by Harris Interactive, Gen Y has total annual income of about $211 billion--of which they spent approximately $172 billion a year. The Harris Interactive study also noted that Gen Y preferences drive a large number of adult purchases, as teens participate in household consumption choices.

The report was gleaned from data gathered for Forrester's North American Consumer Technology Adoption Study, which was based on a mail survey of almost 67,000 North American households.