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I'm 52 and use technology so advanced I'm not even cleared to know how it works.
Me too!!
I have a generic facebook account that I use to get free products through. I don't keep a personal one. I see and speak to most of my family on a daily basis anyway.
I am 42 and use email on a daily basis but I simply do not see the point of social network sites. I have no desire to ever join Facebook or Twitter. I find snail mail, email and phone calls as well as meeting in the flesh perfectly satisfactory in terms of keeping in touch.
I have gone on facebook out of curiosity via a friend's page and could not believe the inanity and superficiality of it all. I am obviously way too intellectually dim to even comprehend the appeal of such websites. I shall resist it until my dying breath. To me it is the personal equivalent of reality TV show turning us all into voyeurs and self obsessed narcissists/exhibitionists who need constant reassurance as to how many "friends" they have. What I have seen of it reeks of desperation and the delusion that others should care about one's life.
Facebook to me is the anti-thesis of privacy and I value mine far too much to enter that world. Call me a grumpy old sod but I don't need 24 hour access to humanity 7/7 365 days a year.
My Grandma just turned 91 on Sunday, and she uses email. Not Facebook, though.
But my Mom, her brother and sister all 50-something to 60-somethings have Facebook accounts. My mom and dad, are both surfing the net every night. My mom started a business and runs that from her computer. And has a facebook page for it.
I'm almost there (late 40s) and I have a FB account, email, and am fluent in a number of design programs as well as all Windows applications. I use FB to keep up with my siblings, my daughters who have grown and moved away, and my Norwegian relatives. It's a great way to share photos and information with those you are far away from. A friend of mine that I hadn't seen in 18 years just found me on FB.
My parents however, could never grasp computer usage. I think you're disparaging the wrong generation. All the people I know who are in my age bracket are quite computer literate.
I wish the older relatives in my extended family used Facebook or at a minium had an email address, but few do. Actually I counted 14 extended family relatives and only two have a face book account and only 4 have a personal use email.
Do you find that IN GENERAL social networking is for younger people and those over 50 years old even avoid using email to communicate?
Hmmm. I AM over 50. I use Facebook, although not that much. I don't find it all that useful or interesting, and I'm not into those games with the chickens or whatever. I've also lived long enough that a) I don't even remember some of those people who want to be my "friend", and b) I know that a part of wisdom and happiness comes from weeding people out of your life over time. On the positive side, my childhood best friend, whom I haven't seen since we were 13, found me last week via Facebook. However, given that most of those people who keep popping up on my Facebook page are the same age as me, that would seem to kill any theory that people over 50 generally don't use social networking sites.
One of my brothers who is 43 does not use email and never will. The 41-year-old does. My older sisters, 58 and 60, use email but not Facebook. My 49-year-old sister uses both.
My 81-year-old mother uses email only rarely. She stopped because all she kept getting were religious emails and verses and those stupid pass-this-angel-along-to-100-friends-and-you'll-win-a-prize emails. My mother is very religious, but she is not superstitious.
I am 42 and use email on a daily basis but I simply do not see the point of social network sites. I have no desire to ever join Facebook or Twitter. I find snail mail, email and phone calls as well as meeting in the flesh perfectly satisfactory in terms of keeping in touch.
I have gone on facebook out of curiosity via a friend's page and could not believe the inanity and superficiality of it all. I am obviously way too intellectually dim to even comprehend the appeal of such websites. I shall resist it until my dying breath. To me it is the personal equivalent of reality TV show turning us all into voyeurs and self obsessed narcissists/exhibitionists who need constant reassurance as to how many "friends" they have. What I have seen of it reeks of desperation and the delusion that others should care about one's life.
Facebook to me is the anti-thesis of privacy and I value mine far too much to enter that world. Call me a grumpy old sod but I don't need 24 hour access to humanity 7/7 365 days a year.
Then again I am not really the sociable type...
Agree with your post.... I'm also very computer literate but I don't use social networking sites (though I'd use it for business if I saw the opportunity).
I get many invitations to be a Facebook "friend," but I decline these as I prefer to have a few close friends/family who I can keep up with via phone, email, text, and in-person. I don't have the time nor inclination to maintain Facebook "friends" and keep yet another account updated with photos, blogs, frivolous tidbits/jokes, etc. (Boy do I sound like a stick in the mud!).
I have always been very social, but I now try to keep my friends to a smaller, manageable amount. I want to have the time to form connections and support friends with whom I have an intellectual/spiritual compatibility. I would rather have a few close friends than 100 aquaintance "friends" on a Facebook account I must maintain.
I wish the older relatives in my extended family used Facebook or at a minium had an email address, but few do. Actually I counted 14 extended family relatives and only two have a face book account and only 4 have a personal use email.
Do you find that IN GENERAL social networking is for younger people and those over 50 years old even avoid using email to communicate?
I am over 50 and FB just gives me a presence on the internet although I'm not an avid user. My 80-something parents use email, paypal, etc. but not facebook, they have no interest in that. I think the biggest difference when it comes to social networks is that the older users aren't USUALLY as interested in creeping on people they only have a casual connection to, which is what drives those things. I have 25 FB friends (and 2 of them are cats!!LOL), my kids have over 500 each so they have to spend a lot more time keeping up.
I'm extremely computer literate though, and was a computer programmer long before people had them in their homes.
I'm 52 and use technology so advanced I'm not even cleared to know how it works.
FB is a little boring these days. It was a novelty at first, but as previous posters mentioned there are a few concerns, in my case mainly getting the time to read all the gobbledygook.
I'm a little younger than Phil and my high school graduating class has its own Facebook page, and many discussion threads.
I have friends that are in their sixties and seventies on Facebook.
I also have siblings younger than me that have no desire to be on Facebook. Their friends are friends with ME on Facebook and can't understand why my brothers don't want to be on Facebook.
Facebook is multi-generational. I love it because I have my friends and a few family members on there. I can control it to who I want on my list and who can see me. If a person uses the controls correctly, it can be a really great thing.
I use the blocking feature for a few people I don't want to find me and a horrid ex-boss whom I want no more connections with.
Last edited by cricket_factor; 09-07-2010 at 12:18 PM..
Reason: Grammar.
I'm 64, and Al Gore and I started the internet (shortly after we invented the wheel).
Yes, I use email and Facebook. I met my late wife via emails in 1991. (That was before there was an "internet" as we now know it.) I was first "online" with a 75 baud modem hooked to my Apple II in 1979, but I didn't spend much time online because the long distance phone calls were too expensive. I built my first website in 1995.
Most people who I know between 9 and 90 use email.
What I refuse to use is phone texting. I don't see the point of it. But my 70-year-old brother, who refuses to get a computer, uses it.
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