Do you have a Facebook page?

[CoffeeCat]

I guess I'm a little late to the party, but I joined FB just a few weeks ago.

I'm in my mid-40's--and for a long time, I thought FB was mainly for teenagers and
college students.

I can't believe the number of people my age (and older) who are on here! It
really is amazing.

My husband said he read a recent article about the fastest growing demographic
of FB members. FB pages of those in their late thirties - early fifties--has
grown by 300 percent.

I think FB is cool. However, it's a little surreal to be connected to
my high-school friends, college friends, work friends, current neighbors,
coworkers--and everyone else I've met my entire life.

Also, let's say you add an old friend from college---into your network. That college
friend can click on all of your FB friends--and see who all of their FB friends are.
It's like...your ex-boyfriend meets your new neighbor, plus all of their friends.

It's cool...but I'm still getting used to it. I guess that makes me unhip! ;)

What do others think of FB? Do you like it?

[blue cat]

1. i'm in my mid 40's

and can't even stand to log in...it's just too exhausting. frankly, i don't see where people find the time.

[CoffeeCat]

2. It is kind of exhausting...

I have 30 friends that I'm connected to. I get overwhelmed with that. 30 friends
is nothing on FB! I've seen people with up to 500 friends.

I'd say it's totally average to have 100 FB connections, wouldn't you?

It can really suck up a lot of your time.

[NeedleCast]

50. Wait FaceBook is exhausting

but you have 12,500 DU posts?

Does not compute.

[Lex]

17. if they find the time to read & post on DU . . .

nt

[livvy]

3. Ummm...be careful. It's addictive.

I recently joined and I've spent quite a bit of time nosing about there. Between DU and now FB, I'm not getting a whole lot of other stuff done.

Watch out for the games. They will really hook you in. lol

Enjoy. It is fun, and a neat way to connect with people you might have lost touch with. You just might want to consider investing in a good timer, and keep it close by. :rofl:

There is a DU group there started by someone here. PM me if you'd like the link to it, or you can find it using the search engine for political groups. It is not an official part of this site, but there are quite a few DUers who have joined the group.

[CoffeeCat]

8. I know...I can feel the addiction coming on...

...because you get so used to the interaction, the comments people leave for you, the
pictures people post and all of the conversations on all of your "friends" pages.

I can see how people would spend hours on there.

It is nice, to be able to connect with people that you haven't talked with in a while. After
time passes, it would seem weird to pick up the phone, and FB allows you to casually
connect---with everyone you've ever known!!!

They make it impossible to leave old boyfriends behind...they're disrupting the natural order of things! :rofl

[livvy]

45. Well, now I'm miffed...

I've not had one former boyfriend look me up. :rofl: Must have been really a handful. It was so long ago that I had a former boyfriend, who can remember?

[spindrifter]

4. I can't believe how much time some people

devote to entering their latest activity: Jane Doe is "just getting back from the toilet"; Jane Doe is "wondering whether she'll dust the back room in an hour"; Jane Doe is "daydreaming about sex again."
This is why many workplaces have blocked FB.

[iamjoy]

13. Too Funny

One weekend I followed my fifteen year old cousin's fight with her boyfriend via FB. Such drama!

[RB TexLa]

5. Sounds like a tool for stalkers to find lost prey, I'll pass.

[CoffeeCat]

9. A stalker could find you on FB...

...but they can't connect with you or get into your little FB world--without you
okaying it.

You have to "accept" invitations from friends. You can decline them, and that
leaves the person totally outside of your FB world.

[cmf]

27. You can block them as well

Then they can't see you at all. Even if you have mutual friends.

[grasswire]

6. My 78-year-old aunt is having a ball on FB

Maybe it suits retirees, who have lots of time.

[JenniferJuniper]

7. Mid 40's as well and I found about 50 members of my graduating class

with pages. I don't have a page myself, but my sister a year younger does.

It kind of creeps me out, to tell you the truth. I guess there is something about being forever connected to everyone you've ever known that unsettles me. Takes away some nostalgia and the mystery. Frankly, I could have lived quite happily never seeing that photo of of a bald, chubby Tommy Jamison.

[CoffeeCat]

11. I hear ya...

...and I just mentioned this in a previous post.

The natural order of things is disrupted. You go to high school, you move on. Then you go to college, and move on.
Then you get a job...another job...move to another state...make friends at another job...etc.

FB allows you to never leave any chapter of your life behind, if you don't want to.

It is a bit surreal.

I'm happily married, and I see ex bfs on there--and it cracks me up! My husband and I were talking about this
and we both agreed that FB has probably caused a lot of grief for people! It's so easy now, to chat with old
boyfriends and people that you have had strong emotional connections to. You're supposed to leave ex-boyfriends
behind--not bring them into your social network 20 years later and see them online every day.

It's weird. Most of FB is just happy fun. But there is a weird element to it that I've not quite processed.

[eShirl]

10. I can only stand logging in to that thing once every other week or so

too much time-wasting spammy crap to wade through

[iamjoy]

12. I Joined Six Weeks Ago

yes, it is amazing how fast you can add friends through other friends. I also use it to help stay connected to causes like Marriage Equality and Reproductive Rights.

One of our County Commissioners is on it too and she posts links to articles that reference her!

I'm in my late thirties and I used to think it was just for the millenials. Apparently it used to be and now they are getting annoyed that all these "old farts" are crashing their party. LOL.

[firedupdem]

14. I'm 42, just made a page and joined the DU group there...but...

I don't get it? It's too busy for me...can't really figure it out. My oldest child wants me off of it immediately and won't tell me why! I think I know because he looks drunk as hell on a lot of the pictures I saw on his page.

[CoffeeCat]

26. LOL!!!!

That's hysterical!

Ya see...that's what is happening! The high-school/college aged kids have been
fully entrenched in FB for a while.

Now, we're infiltrating!

I have a friend who tried to add her daughter, and her daughter kept telling her that FB wouldn't allow her
to add her mom...because of some technical glitch. Yeah right!!!

If I was in high school...I sure as hell wouldn't want my mom connected to my entire social life, and everything
I said to all 300 of my closest friends.

Hysterical!

[firedupdem]

28. LOL! Thanks for making me laugh!

I looked at those pictures and I'm thinking is he away at school or on vacation? There were some questionable pictures with red half shut eyes! I'm like no wonder he wants me gone immediately!

Get this....the 15 year old still hasn't accepted my friend invite! The little shit! I asked him about it today and he says oh, I'm busy, I haven't been on that site. Yeah right!

:rofl:

[OneGrassRoot]

40. LOL! I heard that! LOL

I'm mid-40s....too busy for me, too, as many have said. Great for networking though (I'm more inclined to use for business networking than personal). Can't stand comment walls; send me an email, for cryin' out loud. And I really don't care what mood anyone else is in!

My teenager isn't thrilled with all the "old people" infiltrating. LOL

[BlueGirlRedState]

15. I have a FB page

I use it mainly to connect with my fellow digi-scrappers who are also moms of children adopted from China. But there's also people from my old church before we moved, my husband, my daughter, a couple of people from work (got to be careful there). It's a quick break from tedious work -- besides I watched the inauguration on FaceBook and chatted with my like-minded friends.

[Not Me]

16. I have a Facebook account, and seem to keep it under control

I am close to my family and friends and since we are all spread out over the country, I get glimpses of their lives that I might not get in a phone call or an extended weekend visit.

[Caliman73]

18. I just joined yesterday.

My sister convinced me and now old friends from grade school and high school are all over the place!! :rofl:

[man4allcats]

19. I'm 60 and I have a Face Book page.

Actually, I guess I should more accurately say I'm a registered user there. I haven't really done anything with the page yet. I suppose I'm still trying to figure out why it matters. I think more than a few of the people I went to high school or college with are either dead, in prison or vote Republican. I wonder if perhaps I'm not just too much of a recluse for FB. Are there any felines with Face Book pages? I relate quite well to that species.

[Lex]

20. If you have a FB account, take the time to understand how the privacy controls work.

FB has a lot of ways to control privacy--A LOT, but people don't take the time to understand them.

I enjoy my FB page. I glance at it several times a day, but it doesn't require tons of reading time (as some people seem to imply in the thread).

For instance:
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=11519877130

[firedupdem]

25. Thanks for that....I just joined and I'm still feeling my way around.

I just changed my setting so that only I can see comments....good.. because I have some ignorant family members and don't want others seeing the shit they may type!

[mt13]

21. i am 52

i just got started on Facebook and have 25 friends. my 18 year old son has 908 friends!

it is fun and really demands one to be able to severely multitask!

[bikebloke]

22. I usually check in and check out.

Mostly to check on a group I created to see if anyone I used to know joined. Mostly strangers who came to the place afterwards. Then from time to time I'll ask a couple other friends who are leary of joining if they knew any them. Nope.

Is there a way to search your high school by graduating year? (I tried searching with school name and year, but still pulled up everybody who ever walked by the place.) I can find better things to do than sift through over 30 years of names and faces.

[Muttocracy]

23. I hope not! someone else would have put it up if it's there ;-)

[IDemo]

24. Nope

Anyone who wanted to get in touch with me that badly has already.

[ellenfl]

29. my cousin told me to go to her page . . . so i signed up.

i am almost 59 and also surprised at the age range. i hope i don't get hooked! i doubt i will have many friends, anyway. i'm pretty much a loner.

i joined myspace and have not been back since the day i joined!

ellen fl

[Hissyspit]

30. Yes. Have had since it went public. But I'm an academic and teach digital arts

so it's part of my job to keep up with such things. I was actually on Friendster Beta.

[tabbycat31]

31. I'm in my 20s and no

I'm being begged to join almost every day, but I'm skeptical of revealing my last name online. I dont want to make one up because I wouldnt mind people who legitimately wanted to find me to find me.

I just don't like the idea of it being on display.

[KitSileya]

39. I was worried about privacy as well.

That's why I didn't use my last name. I am registered with my first and middle name only. Having a very unique last name (only my family has our spelling of it) makes me doubly vulnerable, I feel. So I cranked up the privacy settings, only let those I really want to see my page join me as friends, and generally don't join a lot of silly groups, or add silly applications. I figure, if there's someone I want to friend, I can go find them instead of letting a thousand former and present pupils, distant family, and forgotten classmates pepper me with friending requests. Other than that, it's a great way to keep up with my friends who in most cases live half a world away - more immediate and more effortless than livejournal.

[blue_onyx]

49. I'm also in my 20s

and I haven't joined Facebook or myspace. I don't really have the desire to join. I'm not sure I want people from high school suddenly contacting me. I hated high school and was happy to leave it behind.

[CraftyGal]

32. I am on facebook, twitter, blogger, and other groups.

I am on Ravelry (a knitter's/crocheter's forum, much like DU) and other groups on yahoo.

CraftyGal

[Sheltiemama]

33. I joined last week, and I'm 41.

My newspaper finally got a group on it. I have it admit, it's fun. And today, I heard from a friend from high school back in the 1980s! But I don't have a lot of personal info on there. I use a picture of my dog for my profile picture, for example.

[Sultana]

34. I'm 23 and I have one (no surprise, lol)

I mainly use it when I am depressed, IDK why.

[20score]

35. An old friend asked me to join, so I did. (Didn't want to be rude.) Then my wife got me into Mafia

Wars. I have never played computer games before, but what the hell.
I found a DU group and joined it. If anyone sends me a message and they're on Facebook, I'll send you my real name. It would be cool to connect a person to the DU name.

[Skittles]

36. no, I'd never do anything like that

I don't WANT to hear from people

[Missy Vixen]

37. I'm still getting used to it, too

I'm closer to 50 than I am 30, so I'm part of that exploding demographic...

It is amazing to watch the connections people make on FB! In the meantime, I enjoy the discussions, and I really enjoy the groups that people form. (There's a fan club for Aretha Franklin's Inaugural hat, for instance!)

I'm unhip, too. Let's own it. ;-)

[Raine]

38. Late 50's I had one

for a couple of years.

[proud2BlibKansan]

41. I have 729 Facebook friends

Do I have to buy them ALL birthday gifts?

[blonndee]

42. Yes, I do.

I enjoy it and it's fun to keep up with my friends, especially since I'm currently displaced in "Little Texas," New Mexico, AND especially since most of them are from grad school and, naturally, many have moved on to other places. I don't use it like my freshman students did a few years ago, though. Facebook actually helped me find some "lost" biological family members and the only three people from high school I still wondered about.

[Iggo]

43. Not yet.

But it's starting to seem inevitable that I will get one.

I really don't want to be contacted by people I knew when we were kids, though. I'm real comfy letting the past remain the past.

ETA: I'm 47.

[mainer]

44. Yes. It's a time sucker, but I supposedly "need it" for my business.

I really don't understand why it's supposed to be such a huge business networking site. All it seems to bring out are old classmates and stalkers. Luckily I have an assistant who helps monitor it for me.

[DemReadingDU]

46. Facebook or MySpace?

I don't have either one. It seemed that MySpace used to be for highschool and Facebook for college. Now, it seems like everyone talks about Facebook. Not sure I want to spend time on something I don't have time for.

:shrug:

[Ilsa]

47. I joined recently because a friend recommended it, but I haven't

looked for anyone or uploaded pix, or anything since then. I think it is a waste of my time for now.

[Liberal_in_LA]

48. Late 40s, got a facebook page recently.