(CNN) — Nancy Ehrlich was nearing 50 and frustrated, teaching at her small Pennsylvania town’s elementary school with colleagues who didn’t share her love of technology.
Then, last summer, she found Twitter.
Now, Ehrlich — who turns 51 in a few weeks — barely qualifies for the fastest-growing club on the Web. The number of internet users over 50 who use social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have nearly doubled in the past year, according to a study released Friday.
“It definitely has changed my whole life — that’s how significant Twitter is to me,” said Ehrlich, who now regularly chats with educators around the world and helps host a weekly forum for them on the micro-blogging site. “At first, I didn’t really get it. But I just kept watching it and, before you knew it, I was hooked.”
Between April 2009 and May, the percentage of internet users 50 and up who said they use social-networking sites has risen from 22 percent to 42 percent, according to the survey by the Pew Research Center.
Respondents 65 and older reported a 100 percent increase, while those between 50 and 64 jumped 88 percent.
By comparison, the number of users from 18-29 who said they use networking sites rose a much more meager 13 percent.
For anyone who logs on to sites such as Facebook and Twitter, the increase in older users is probably pretty obvious.
AGE of Central Texas Blog 
When I was a boy, my grandmother told me that she was able to travel the world while sitting in her “reading chair” by the window. Back then, in the 1950s, she did so by reading. Today, grandmas (and grandpas) can do the same via the Internet. But the Internet offers so much more than grandma obtained from her books. In addition to travel, the Internet also offers the opportunity to meet new friends and to stay in communication with friends, new and old. All this without having to leave the reading chair by the window. Bill