Facebook for Geezers
Slate columnist Emily Yoffe describes her experience joining Facebook as a 50-something. It hasn’t been pretty. (Although, ironically, writing the article seems to have gotten her many “friends.”)
I joined up a little more than a month ago, mostly to start a Friends of OTB group. While I’m younger than Yoffe, I’m still well outside Facebook’s target demo. Still, my experience has been different than hers.
While Friends of OTB continues to languish at 38 members (mostly, I suspect, because I’ve done little to promote it and because I have no plan whatsoever for what to do with it) I’ve amassed 55 “friends” without making any special effort to reach out and without adding anyone that I don’t actually “know” in some capacity. Virtually all of them, though, are at least fifteen years younger than me.
I’m connecting with people I already knew so it’s sort of an electronic rolodex. I’m also connecting with people I met at CPAC. But I’m not really sure what to do with it.
Count me as an exception the age generalization. At 51 I am probably at the upper end of the Friends of OTB range.