ShAARP Session: Observations from AARP

This one looks de-lic-ous!

I came across a great AP article about how older workers are struggling to find a job during the recession, and largely because of their age.

As there has been much evidence that companies discriminate based on a person's age, folks are going to great lengths to appear younger on paper and even in person - from omitting college graduation dates to actually taking botox injections. (Yes, really.) When a group of people are changing their lives and identity in such a way to avoid being discriminated against, that tells me there's a problem.

Check out the entire piece here, and also take a look at AARP's recent feature on how to look out for signs of bias or discriminatory questions in job interviews.

Remember the new social networking section on AARP we blogged about last week? Well, it looks like it may come in handy after we find a new study showing that not only are the numbers of 50+ Facebook users skyrocketing, but their younger counterparts are actually decreasing:

A report released by iStrategyLabs shows that while the number of Facebook's U.S. high school and college-age users declined over the past six months, its popularity among the 55-and-older crowd is booming. In fact, the number of 55-and-older Facebook users showed staggering growth -- 513.7% -- in the last six months, the digital consulting firm said. This isn't a new phenomenon for Facebook. In March, Hitwise Pty. reported that the social network's audience of people over the ripe old age of 35 increased by 23% in February compared with the same month a year earlier. While Facebook was first launched to serve college students, over the past year or so the network has expanded to include many middle-aged folks. (Emphasis mine)

While there are rumors that the decrease in college-aged users is because they are beginning to feel alienated by their parents joining the site, I don't know if that's the entire reason. There are so many new social networking sites being introduced every day, young people end up migrating to the newer and better forums. But be careful kids, looks like mom and pops are right on your tail!

Not sure about Twitter? Want to join Facebook?

We did a live webcast with Deanna Zandt earlier today and brought in our Twitter followers for questions.

Now the whole thing's available online. Watch below, and follow our Twitter feed to find out about more live broadcasts in the future!

In a few hours, we're doing something new.

We're bringing Deanna Zandt into the studio to talk about Twitter and other social networking tools. (Check out our guide here.)

Are you curious about Facebook but haven't quite signed up? Do you have any idea what Twitter is? Think Twitter isn't useful?

Make sure and send us your questions and comments. If you've got Twitter, you can just include @aarplive in your tweets. If not, you can just find us at our streaming location and add your comments in the "chat" box. Or comment below!

A new study has found that while the average baby boomer thinks they have above average hearing, their kids think they should get their ears checked.

The study researched 250 older Americans and 250 children of boomers, in which they found that although 72 percent of the older participants believed their hearing was average or better, nearly the same percent of children thought their parents had hearing problems. The kicker is that only 35 percent of their kids have actually told their parents they think they should have their hearing tested.

In other words, while it can be difficult to let your mom or dad know they have a hearing issue, how will they hear you out (no pun intended) if you can't even tell them what the problem is?