Poll: Is social media an important part of your life?

Sometimes they do it kicking and screaming, persuaded by their offspring that they need to be online to exist in 21st century Britain.

But, increasingly, there are people in their 50s, 60s and older who have discovered a whole new existence via internet sites.

Middle-aged men and women are apparently taking to Twitter, Facebook and other social media in their droves.

Is social media an important part of your life? Vote in our poll and have your say in the comment box below.

The number of 45 to 54-year-olds using social networks has jumped by more than a quarter in the past year, according to research published by the Office for National Statistics.

Nearly two in five in this age group now use social media. They are persuaded that it could be for them by the example of people like Stephen Fry, who is prolific on social media and at last count had 7.1 million follows on Twitter, with more than 50,000 people he would call friends on the site as well.

There is some way to go – about one in eight British homes, 4.2 million, still do not have internet access.

But researchers say that as the internet increasingly becomes a staple of life in this country, so larger numbers of people see social media as a way to share information, keep up with friends and follow trends nationally.

"Facebook used to be something that parents joined to monitor their kids," said Bernie Hogan, a University of Oxford research fellow who specialises in social media. "Now they are the ones who want to participate."

Mr Hogan suggested that increasing trust of technology was one of the reasons that social networks were becoming popular among the middle-aged.

"They're less confident and less trusting with technology," he said.

"It takes a while for them to warm up to anything new."

"Strangely, this is all happening as younger people leave Facebook for other social networks such as Instagram and Whatsapp," he said.

"Which, of course, Facebook owns."

Middle-aged celebrity tweeters, meanwhile, are drawing others in their age group to the microblogging site.

Fry, one of the earliest adopters of Twitter, reflects on every aspect of his life through the medium.

"In car on way to location," he once tweeted.

"I play a labourer who gets beaten up. Poor me. I know what you're thinking: typecast again."

Sarah Brown, the charity campaigner and wife of the former prime minister, is followed by 1.2 million people, while comedian Eddie Izzard boasts 3.2 million Twitter fans.

Are you at a certain time of life and clueless about Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat? Perhaps it is time to open up to the world of social media. Internet Editor Ian Harvey (aged 51¼) says it is time to take the plunge:

So the middle-aged are taking to Facebook and Twitter in droves. Well, like it or not, I'm firmly in that demographic.

But maybe because my job has been in internet news for over a decade now, I've been tweeting and, er, Facebooking for years.

With a son recently backpacking in Thailand, family in America and New Zealand and a former Shropshire Star colleague living an idyllic life in the south of France, Facebook has been the best way to keep up with all of them, no matter where they are.

And, of course, let them keep up with me.

Of the two, I enjoy using Facebook much more than Twitter.

Facebook is about the people I know, like and care about.

Twitter, on the other hand is full of people I don't know . . . and plenty that I don't want to know. And, like so much white noise, it seems full of aimless chatter, kittens and One Direction.

Personally I use Facebook to keep in touch with people I know and Twitter to keep tabs on – and occasionally communicate with – people I don't know.

Being a major music fan this has led to a couple of online chats with the likes of cellist Julian Lloyd Webber or Whitesnake rock legend David Coverdale.

Even now there's a frisson of excitement when someone like that replies to 'little old me'.

Like many other people I find myself using both Facebook and Twitter more and more as a news source – it's where I first learned of the deaths of Michael Jackson and Nelson Mandela, for example.

The Shropshire Star flashes up breaking news instantly on social media while exploring it in more depth in the paper. It is a perfect balance that is a way of life for thousands of our readers.

We drive thousands of people to news stories every day with the Shropshire Star Facebook and Twitter profiles.

More than 24,000 people follow us on Twitter and almost 14,000 on Facebook, so when the big stories break we can let them know immediately.

Mind you, my partner, is strongly anti-social media. So much so that during a week away recently I was under strict instructions not to put on Facebook where we were, so that we didn't alert the world to our empty houses.

It didn't stop me putting up a photo gallery when we got back though!

And what about the older generation? My brother and I 'treated' our somewhat cynical Mum, who is in her 70s, to an iPad a couple of years ago. We haven't persuaded her on to social media yet. But email, catch-up TV and YouTube? There's been no stopping her!

Fifty-something Toby Neal isn't too sure about Facebook and Twitter:

A little while ago I took the plunge. I went on Facebook. I thought I ought. But please, please, don't be my friend. You'll be wasting your time.

A few years back my younger brother explained Facebook to me.

His voice was full of excitement and enthusiasm. You do this and you do that, he said.

And you get friends. Not just any friends – but friends! (with an exclamation mark in his voice).

I listened and nodded down the phone, reacting in just the same way as I had when my older brother had spoken with equal excitement and enthusiasm about something special that had popped up on his computer.

That was around the mid-1990s. What do you want to know about? he said. I picked some random subject. Just watch this, he said.

He typed it in the computer and we waited. And we waited. As we waited he told me how marvellous it all was.

I'm afraid the tone of my waiting was a mocking one, as if watching somebody messing up a magic trick.

I don't think anything ever did come up, but then I suppose the internet – or world wide web as it was then – was still in its early days and there was no superfast broadband.

It might not be for me personally, but you won't catch me knocking Facebook for those who get it and for those who consider it important.

I know it is a great way for people to get back in touch with long-lost friends and acquaintances.

And it is a great way to find out what people are up to without having to ask them. Fantastic, I'm sure, for all sorts of other reasons as well, although not being a practitioner, I couldn't list them for you.

But I'm afraid social media will always be something of a mystery to me.

I do admit to being over 21 (and then some), but I fancy that I'm as groovy and with-it as the next old codger.

I use computers all the time. I often access information through the internet. As for Facebook, I've planted my flag in the ground but, beyond that, I don't feel any need to be out there.

Apart from anything else, it looks to be a lot of work keeping up with everybody. I have too much to do than to spend time cultivating my Facebook or noting my every move on Twitter.

Since I went on Facebook I've had repeated email notifications saying that there is somebody who wants to be my friend – somebody I actually know, as it happens.

So far I have ignored them. But I don't like to seem inpolite, so I might yet press some button of acceptance.

And hope they go away.