Facebook started out as this interactive Facebook for Harvard university students in 2004, but by 2005 they had expanded to other colleges, and high school students with a valid email address. That jump alone is impressive. Since then however, in 2006 they got rid of all the “bouncers and began letting anyone into the club”(Rosenhall). From 2006 to 2007 Facebook went from 12 million users to 50 million. Today its almost worldwide and the number of Facebook users is up to 175 million. Also, from June 2008 to January of this year the number of age 35-54 year olds quadrupled, which brings us to the interesting fact that users age 35 and younger make up the bulk of Facebook, but because of the new generation infiltration 41 percent of the younger demographic has dropped, even though Facebook’s stigma is still that it's for college students documenting keggers etc. But in fact, the majority of the Facebook community are not college students, but those who have graduated, and moved on past college life. Publically, Facebook seems more of a college/teen-to-twenties atmosphere, but the numbers show different.
Facebook is aging, and so are we, but Facebook seems to be aging much quicker due to the swell in elder users signing up. If Facebook becomes this elder generation's thing, instead of ours, does that mean the college students will go elsewhere, or age with this medium. The attatchment to this technology seems to have grasped our lives with a very strong grip. The routine of checking your facebook daily, and in some cases more then thrice daily has become part of our daily routine so much so that without Facebook, you no longer are connected to the social circles and results in not knowing about events.
My friend Sean McCurdy doesn't have a Facebook. He's no relying on me to tell him about events including plays, shows, parties, and other fun activities that Facebook has integrated into this college Facebook culture. One of Sean's main praises about not having a Facebook is his seperation from technology. He doesn't like the idea of staring at a screen for too long, and Facebook would indulge that idea more then he want's to in his life(McCurdy). He's scared of getting sucked into a screen all day and not enjoying the life outside. It's interesting to think that becoming a cyborg has already happened in this sense of relying on technology so thoroughly. The same idea Sean has about addiction to a computer screen runs through the head of my other college friend Isaac Silverman. Isaac doesn't have a Facebook either and maintains the idea that life is better lived without knowing what comes next(Silverman).
The additional international aspect of Facebook has made it that much easier to penpal with friends on the other side of the globe. Personally, my friend from Stanford is in Italy doing a year abroad and we’ve kept in touch with lengthy letters about our weekends, the current boy drama in our lives, school, and all sorts of activities(Smith). This added convenience has made it so those long distances from loved ones can still feel close in a way, without snail mail making it take forever.
Over Facebook’s evolution and growth, its applications have also grown. Their original annoyance or perfect excuse for procrastination has begun to turn towards promotion and marketing. Even the standard photo application has become a useful tool to create albums with headshots for performers of all sorts. Not only is it fun to share photos with friends, it’s fun to see your kid’s photos, connect with your children in college, and promote yourself through this "little" network called Facebook. The multitude of information, use and excitement thrown around regarding this newly added demographic has appalled and, in contrast, also created enthusiasm among the stigmatized college students.
Students who have parents trying to friend them on Facebook are either scared of their parents seeing underage drinking and other embarrassing photos, or think its great that its easier to communicate in a world full of technology. The Modesto Bee has an account of a student getting their parents on Facebook and instead of leaving messages on their boy’s phone and never hearing from him, they talk and message everyday now using Facebook (Rosenhall). What this shift in usage means is that Facebook may become less popular among college students due to how many "old fogies' are infiltrating the system. The fear of having a parent see your embarrasing pictures of when you were drunk is beginning to excelerate among the younger college students leading to less use of Facebook by these 18-20 year olds.
Not only can a parent on Facebook utilize it to contact their children, networking business affairs is also that much easier using an interface that allows for so much. Several performers who have Facebook accounts, travel a lot, and have a very hard time keeping in touch with fellow performers, family and friends now have Facebook to make life that much simpler. Mary Evanoff, who works at pier 39 doing a juggling act, networks with her daughter, her friends, and other co-workers all the time(Evanoff). When it rains, it’s an easy way to let the next performer know she won’t be there, or spreading the word about a broken door to the backstage lock up. The beauty of Facebook’s international expansion is incorporated here also. Mary can message her friend Jewels Good in Germany and comment on her new promotional video piece showing a sword swallowing routine in an indoor venue in France(Good).
A lot of Facebook is about convenience. It's because of convenience that it has all of these people, groups and mixed portions of peoples personal lives. The convenience allows for a personal conversation about the kids or how the week has been truly an emotional one to change into one about how work is going and to chat about what needs to be done for the next project and what tools need to be bought, how much etc. College students revel in the convenience that Facebook allows them.
A lot of students are inherently lazy, and Facebook helps that procrastination skill flourish wonderfully. It’s very difficult to keep focused on a paper due in a couple of hours if Facebook is open on your browser. Everyone else in your class is doing the exact same thing, and if your friends with a bunch of those people whatever they do on Facebook shows up in your feed. Some picture with some guy kissing some chic comes up and suddenly the focus has changed from your paper to your friend’s weekly drama.
Is facebook a good thing? Or can its influence create even more problems? Does it have to do with a specific group? Facebook can be a very good thing, but one’s self control must be part of your skill set. Students tend not to have huge amounts of self-control when it comes to easy tools to distract from homework. Facebook fulfills this description very well. Working at the Science and Engineering Library on campus, one can easily surf the net, do homework or mess around on Facebook in between patrons asking for books etc. Applications that become fads among the student librarians are a regular occurrence. The latest is myfarm, where the ladies behind the desk have farms and plant and harvest etc. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve planned to have been doing homework, but instead have been messing around with our farms from this Facebook application. The giggling girls behind the desk have been shushed more then once with the cause being something to do with Facebook or a silly application (the previous was something like Scrabble). On the other hand this bonding experience has brought our work ethic to a happier place. The system is smooth and like a well-oiled machine. Because of this silly application the workers are happier, which means better service to those asking for books and other things the S&E library offers.
If you look at the older demographic though, they manage their Facebook time a little better and go in with a purpose rather then with the sole goal of entertainment and procrastination. With this added purpose driving their Facebook surfing experience, these other users find time to create promo vids and other excercises that produce a positive, business or personal, outcome. Examples of this include Jewels Good's video from a show I mentioned earlier, as well as Cliff Spenger's photos of him in costume at a few Renaissance Fairs(Good and Spenger).
Another interesting thing that has gone on with this older demographic is that the performers have begun to have promo wars and have tried to create the best promo vid in comparison to their friends.The purpose being to get the most work out of it as well as shear ego boosting. The urge to be the best among peers runs strong and true in the realm of street performing and entertainment professionals. It's a way to be a rowdy bunch of children having fun, which is what their jobs generally entail, as well as a way to create a bonding, competitive environment that brings out the best product to work with in the professional sphere. This kind of competition translates over to the preference to use Facebook rather then MySpace or Friendster etc. Facebook allows for better quality videos then YouTube, so that's a strong pull there for those who like to post promo vids, Facebook also offers a wider, more organized range of applications and modes of exchanging information.
In the personal spheres, the older generation has the exceptional use factor. They can get into contact with friends long lost, that kid that called you that name you don’t want to mention, but he’s still cool because time has passed so that it doesn’t matter(Grossman). The ten reasons mentioned in the Time article by Grossman indicates why “Facebook is for old fogies”, not necessarily ideal for college students. What is most interesting is that they aren’t “cool” so where do the cool kids go if Facebook is no longer “cool”? The fast growing demographic on Facebook is the 30 and up group so it's actually way cooler to not be on Facebook at this point (Grossman).The exceptional use factor also plays into this growing additon of older users because they tell their friends, and they have a lot of friends, that haven't known about Facebook for the short period of time its been in existence. If this system of friends adding friends continues spreading, and it will, it will enforce the growth of the elder generation’s use of this site to a extreme level. There is also no way to combat this growth due to the fact we don't want say babies to have Facebook profiles; meaning that the younger generation can only go so far in that direction where the elder generation (30 and up) goes much further. Some of my friend's have grandparents getting Facebook accounts which both very much scares them as well as intrigues there interest a lot(Barnes). With this addition of yet another generation on top of the other that's above the original demographic, Facebook is most definitely heading towards having a group of users that has shifted 20 years older and up very soon. Having this new media become an example of old media brings forward the question of how does media age? It has to do with time, and how people over time, loose interest, or share so much that it becomes too congested with other people that it's no longer fun. But let us take a look at some aspects of Facebook's initial impact on this new demographic that is now taking over.
Emily Neusbaum talks about the shock value of teens these days and how the older demographic seems to be appalled. The thing is, we’ve moved from being appalled to having them join in as well. This transition has made a new frontier of possibilities open up for generation gap crossing and mixing. But the shock value still exists and the main question on those who are shocked tends to be “why would you do that?” The main reason for teens to put pictures up of themselves doing embarrassing things or expose their life to the whole of the internet is for an audience, to document their adolescence, and because the theatrics are fun. Now, the elder generation is doing something of the same, but of their old fullhearty selves back in their college days. One example might be of Mary Evanoff getting tagged in a picture taken in 1986 at a Renaissance Fair walking on a slack rope(Evanoff). The sharing and mixing that has occured is great, but there are more of this older generation so how will Facebook adapt to that? My prediction is that Facebook is headed towards either letting the college students drop out of the Facebook fan group and have Facebook be primarily a 30 and up site, soley based on who is attracted to it. Or, Facebook may become something like a social catalogue of almost everyone on the planet and basically take over.
Fun, promotion, and documentation are the main goals of those displaying their life to the world. Personally, I find that both this generation and the older one, plan on preserving their current life on Facebook. It’s nice to create photo albums of the past, long gone past, and the recent. The sharing part is what gets really grand due to all the comments users can make, and comment on comments. This awesome power of comments on photos from 20 years ago is so great because the users are all around the globe and yet saying you think some kid was cute when he was eight is still possible and can be communicated in this high speed so as to spread that remark almost immediately. It brings a smile to your face. And that’s what Facebook is all about. Spreading the community, both personal, business, family and bridging generation gaps(while sometimes distancing the gaps rather then bridging them). What the future holds is both scary and exciting, Facebook seems to be gaining interest in all sorts of groups including parents and grandparents. But what if this elder generation takes over? Will Facebook cease to exist as it is now? Will the original demographic loose interest and no longer use the site? Or will all users integrate into a super network where you can find anyone you choose by typing in their name and trying to be their friend? I see it going either way; and either dropping off the popular band wagan or becoming a global Facebook where literally everyone lives.
Works Cited
Barnes, Cassie. Personal Interview. 3. Jan. 2009.
Evanoff, Mary. Telephone Interview. 20 Feb. 2009.
Good, Jewels. Telephone Interview. 15 Feb. 2009.
Grossman, Lev "Why Facebook Is for Old Fogies." New York Times 12 Feb. 2009. 16 Feb. 2009
McCurdy, Sean. Personal Interview. 27 Feb. 2009.
Malkin, Bonnie (2007-09-26). "Facebook is UK's biggest networking site". The Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/25/nface125.xml. Retrieved on 2008-04-30.
Nussbaum, Emily "Say Everything." New York Magazine 2007. 16 Feb. 32
Rosenhall, Laurel "Facebook Members are Aging Rapidly." The Modesto Bee 26 Feb. 2009. 1 Mar. 2009
Silverman, Isaac. Personal Interview. 1 Mar. 2009
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