According to a just-released study called Generations Online from Pew Research, the nation’s older generations [Early Boomers (age 55-63), Late Boomers (age 45-54), Silent Generation (age 64-72) and G.I. Generation (age 73+)] use the Internet more for research, e-mail and shopping than do the younger Gen X , Gen Y and Teen groups. 

But just what — or more precisely who — they’re researching might surprise you.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, wowOwow is releasing the results of a January 2009 wowOwow online poll that asked its audience of women aged 45 and older if they have ever used the Internet to research, find — and then reconnect with — a long, lost love. 

The result? Sixty percent of the respondents said they had.

By using Google (39%), social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. (12%), school reunion sites such as Classmates.com and Reunion.com (8%), paid search sites and online phonebooks (4%), wowOwow’s poll points to a tsunami of older women doing more than simply fantasizing about their long, lost loves. They’re looking for them — and finding them. 

And because of both the recent surge in Internet usage by the baby boom generation and beyond and always-improving online search tools, the job of searching and finding those past lovers has become much easier for even the beginner. 

In the wowOwow poll, the community of respondents were forthcoming in sharing not only the kinds of online tools they used to find their exes, but also, via the comments section of the poll, intimate results of their searches. Most commenters’ results fell into one of the six types of experiences grouped together below.

They looked. They found. They married.

“Looked, found and now married. We were engaged 20 years ago when I was a kid. I chickened out. I guess we were meant to be together later in life. I’m glad he sees it the same way! This story has a great ending!”

“I play a game online and that is how I meet my current husband, we used to talk on the phone everyday for over 2 years for hours a day, we both lived 1900 miles apart. I can say it has been the best experience of my life, he is my best friend, I would not trade him for anything. When we met I was not looking for a relationship and he respected that and we both literally started off as good friends and it later developed into what we have now a wonderful marriage of over 5 years.”

Found a Plato(nic) Retreat

“Yes I did and it has been a successful reunion - platonic, intermittent and gracious.”

“But, the man who absolutely broke my heart contacted me last month ‘just to see how I was doing,’ after 32 years of never speaking. It was a very strange conversation, and I was so shocked that I forgot to ask him if he had ever left his wife.”

“Anyway, these former ‘swains’ (who is counting??’) used to show up on the cyberspace, it is really hilarious when around my birthday or Xmas time, they show up in a lineup on my screen … so good for my ego, n’est pas???”

Want to find your own long, lost love? Read wowOwow’s 6 Ways to Find Your First Love Online.