No Longer Just For The Kids
Facebook is a social-networking site, on which there are millions of people. Most of these are students or “young people” but the numbers of the oldies is growing…
“Leading “social network” sites such as MySpace and Facebook, which once left adults baffled, are reporting a huge influx of members who are longer in the tooth.
Facebook, which began life as a site for students to talk to each other and exchange news and photographs, threw its doors open nine months ago to the rest of the world. Last week, the site reported that more than half of its members are now non-students, with membership growing fastest among the over-25s.” (The Telegraph)
That so many Facebook members are no longer students isn’t that much of a surprise - as a large number leave university every year. And neither is the fact that membership is growing fastest among the over-25s, as most of those under 25 who will join already are members.
But there is an inter-generational battle going on, especially between members of the same family, with one person saying: “My college-age daughter indicated she would rather torch her computer than give me access to her page.” I am again not particularly surprised about it, though I can’t really see the point of not making parents with a Facebook profile a “friend”. You can, after all, give “limited profiles” which restrict the information on your page that can be viewed by that person. One young Facebook user says: “Everyone in the whole world thinks it’s super creepy when adults have Facebooks.” Except they don’t. It’s only creepy if they try to be “down with the kids” while they do it.
Facebook has evolved into a very useful tool beyond it’s original purpose, I’m sure. I keep up with my brothers more through Facebook than any other means - partially at least because we all still nominally live at “home” [even though I am currently the three of us only one not there]. I would be happy for my parents to join Facebook - I just don’t know what possible use they could have of it, since none of their friends are likely to have profiles. I would probably give them only limited access, however. There are some things that it is best for parents not to know or see.
Facebook is a modern phenomena. There are groups for everything - even one for Readers of Iain Dale’s Diary now [and I'm a member of the group]. It has evolved way beyond it’s original premise, and has taken on a life of it’s own. It is certainly no longer just for the kids.
Source: The Telegraph
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I have a Facebook profile, but there’s very little information on it besides my name and major.
There are pictures of me, of course, that other people tagged me in, and pictures of my son (because one of the main reasons that I got the profile was to keep in touch with far-away friends whom I rarely see and who have never met my boy).
But something about the odd culture of “networking” websites puts me off. I don’t quite understand why people craft long lists of their favorite TV shows and movies and inside jokes and upload hundreds of pictures of themselves.
That isn’t always the case, of course, but it is more often than not… especially with college-aged women. It seems to require a special degree of self-absorption that I’m uncomfortable with. I don’t think my friends need to read status updates about what I’m doing at any given time of day or wade through albums full of pictures of me.
It’s a bit weird, don’t you think? And it’s a very specific reflection of our generation. Instant gratification. Narcissism. Excessive accessibility.