Despite having worked in tech marketing for 15 years, it seems I’m only a “digital teenager.”   So says US bank Wells Fargo, which tells me that “with a little effort you’ll develop your technological prowess and learn to love the way technology simplifies your life.”

Good to know.    Guess I’d better get myself one of those new iPads so I can finally grow up.

Despite the holes in Wells Fargo’s survey (I seemed to have lost years by virtue of not using VOIP or SMS banking), it does make a serious point, which is that the assumption that older = tech dinosaurs, and younger = early adopters does not necessarily always hold true.

Wells Fargo for example found that 30 somethings made more day to day use of technology than 20 somethings.   In other words, above and beyond actually communicating with their friends on Facebook, they were more likely to use ‘advanced photo and video technologies’, use career networking services and manage their finances online.

Translation, by Wells Fargo’s definition, generation X-ers are more mature and skilled digital consumers because they’ve moved beyond communication towards practical uses.

Last year the Pew Research Center said that “contrary to the image of Generation Y as the ‘net generation’, internet users in their twenties do not dominate every aspect of online life.   Generation X is the most likely to bank, shop and look for information online.”

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