A report by the British media regulator Ofcom suggests that a proportion of 15-24 year olds who used to hang out on social networks like Facebook and MySpace have abandoned them because of the influx of older people, particularly the 25-34 age group.

Basic figures showed that just half of 15-24 year olds used social networking sites in the first quarter of this year, compared to 55% in the same period of 2008, while 25-34 age group usage has increased from 40% to 46%.

The conclusion is that youngsters are still using the Internet and communicating via it, but just not on the networks that have become overrun with embarrassing grownups (including parents and teachers).

Statistics like this are all very well, but it’s hardly a mass exodus. There’s no mention of how the figures were collected — it’s more likely to be based on surveys than on real usage data, and surveys are inherently inaccurate.

It does suggest a rising average age of social network populations, but beyond that it’s hard to draw any solid conclusions from fairly nondescript data.

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