I admit it, I’m getting old. Out-of-touch, losing it, off-the-deep-end, OLD. That is why I never even thought about joining the craze that is Facebook. At least not until a friend of mine (who is only a few years younger than me, incidentally) sent me a request to view her profile. So I clicked on the link and prepared myself to see her cute little face and information about what she was up to. I was told that in order to access her page, I would have to join the social network. Since it was free, I figured, why not?
Joining was easy. In fact, anyone who has an email address can do it. So I signed up and checked out her profile. While I was there, I went ahead and put in my info and uploaded some pictures. Getting into the spirit of it, I sent out an invite to my family members to get them on board too.
That was about six months ago. For the first few months I mostly ignored Facebook and my profile sat there unused. Until one day when I received a “poke” from one of my high school buddies. So I poked her back. Then I got curious and started looking around. I began to find people who I went to high school with 20 years ago and other people whom I have known since I was a child. I even found old boyfriends! It’s the craziest thing – these people are all over the world, some as far away as Japan and Iraq, while others are just down the street.
Now I find myself checking it on a fairly regular basis. I still don’t update it every day like some do, but it’s fun to go and see who’s new to the scene. My parents are even on board and regularly write notes on my “wall.” And then last week, I got a request from my husband’s mother who is 86!
This completely supports what I’ve read about the demographics of Facebook changing. Originally it was started as a way for students to communicate with each other and you could only join if you had an “.edu” address. A few years ago, however, that changed and Facebook opened its doors to anyone. Recent data shows that adults who are considered “middle aged” or 35-44 (yikes – am I really middle-aged?) are one of the fastest growing groups. In fact, my stepson (who is 22) said that the last several friend requests that he has received have been from his friend’s parents.
My conclusion from all this is that the face of Facebook is definitely changing. It must be if it has us “middle-aged” folks using it (I’m still not over that one!). And while I don’t spend a ton of time on it, I do enjoy catching up with people and using it as it was intended – as a social network.
What about you, do you use Facebook? How much time do you spend on it?
9 comments