Not Your Kid’s Facebook, Part I

…first in an occasional series of new-fangled gizmos and how geezers like me use them.

I joined Facebook (FB) in July 2007 nearly a year after it was opened to the general public. Initially, it was simply an experiment because the Chief had gotten an invite from a high-profile friend and I thought it HAD to be a hoax. I offered to take one for the team—it’s not nearly as big a deal if my email account gets hacked—but didn’t get too involved until mid-2008.

I’m far from expert in all things FB, although I spent a weekend in 1979 with friends (who shall remain nameless for their own protection) assigning a ranking to every guy on my small college campus. A foreshadowing of Facemash? You decide. We didn’t know enough computer programming to put it online, but the campus post office was buzzing on Monday morning when the index cards began falling out of the mailboxes…”You got a 10? My number says 4.”

Sean Parker was an intern in our office for about three days when he was 15 so with these august credentials I offer the following observations:

·          You’re not too old. I’m proud to report that my mama is a FB user (and, by default, my dad regularly mentions things he’s read on “the Facebook”). In a survey, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that social networking use among internet users ages 50 and older nearly doubled from April 2009 to May 2010. I’ll never be as adept with social media as the young ‘uns and I don’t want to interfere in their world, but I can play around the fringes. You can, too.

·          You’ll be surprised at who you’ll find. My friends list is a cross-section of family, high school classmates, college friends, a few students from my teaching days, along with current friends and colleagues. Are they all people I’d call regularly? No, I probably wouldn’t even email a fraction of them more than a couple of times every five years, but I do scan their statuses and know what they’re up to.

·          You’ll also be surprised at who plays Farmville or Mafia Wars or Petville. The game craze seems to have calmed down in my circle of friends. In full disclosure, I generally hide those games in my feed. If you want to play them, have at it; I just don’t want to see your activity.

·          Your memories won’t necessarily jibe with what folks say on FB. I’m not the same person I was at 16, 22, or even 35 so I don’t know why I thought people from those periods of my life would be. But I did, and it took a few weeks to realign my memories with their online realities…they probably think the same thing about me!

·          Quantity or quality? Don had more friends in his first 24 hours on FB than I did after 18 months. Maybe I just don’t know as many people as he did, but I was heartened by Robin Dunbar’s recent NY Times article, “You’ve Got to Have (150) Friends.”

So, I’m guessing you may have an account (I know lots of cool people) but do you do anything with it? Try it; you’ll like it.

Want to learn more? You might be interested in Part II and Part III.