Over-50s Invade the Social Networking Scene 230
An anonymous reader writes "The Telegraph newspaper reports that over-50s are invading sites like Facebook and MySpace in massive numbers. A recent study showed that nearly one third of Facebook users are aged between 35 and 54, and that this group also made up 41 percent of MySpace users. "Because the mind of an over-50 is likely superior to that of a drink-addled undergrad, at first there was uncertainty about whether older users would find the Facebook-led social-networking phenomena attractive." Looks like dad just turned up to the party."
Age bias ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Then: one third of Facebook users are aged between 35 and 54
Gives some evidence that you may well feel like 50 if you are 35 (especially if you are looking for a job in Germany). Luckily, this does not apply to me, being well over 50 and having 'retired from reality' (as someone mentioned here).
CC.
The math's not wrong! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:oh, dear (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I wish the Baby Boomers would just die (Score:2, Interesting)
No you didn't. You tried for seven years but it was the powers that be that finally pulled the plug (then tried to save face by blaming it on you).
gave women and minorities the same rights as everyone else,
No you didn't. It was Lyndon Baines Johnson and his Supreme Court appointees, such as Thurgood Marshall, who passed and enacted the laws. And they weren't quite baby boomers, now were they?
won the space race,
No you didn't. It was not-quite baby boomer engineers who did the lion's share of the work, mostly you got to see it on the teevee. And even then, the case can be made that the Space Race took the most expensive and disposable shortcut, thereby scuttling future platforms that would have created a more pervasive human presence in space today. All due to irrational fear - then it was the communists, now it's terrorism. You've never been able to erase the nuclear bomb drills in elementary school from your mind, have you?
gave you the ability to even post your snarky comments due to the fact that we pushed technology forward.
I'll lukewarmly grant you the fact that a microscopic minority of baby boomers have been visionaries, albeit some with monopolistic tendencies, giving us mediocre, vulnerable and crash-prone file-oriented software.
Humbly and with awe, I'll grant you Bob Dylan, whose messages (gospel?) you seem to have completely eradicated from your mind. Many baby boomers who get nostalgic when watching Forrest Gump think that the guy ranting and raving in Washington was Dylan, when actually it was Abbie Hoffman.
Now please tell me what your chicken-shit generation have done except sit back on your ass and whine about how shitty every thing is.
We tried in 2000 and 2004 to stop Baby Bush from being elected, but baby boomer mainstream media did a great job at disaffiliating a large percentage of the electorate. Add to that your resting on your laurels and adopting a "screw the community, I want less taxes", and you overwhelmed the common good.
We've protested en masse that the current scenario of globalization is nothing more than "What's good for McDonald's/Wall-Mart is good for the world", even as you are baffled and irritated by our outrage - "What are these spoiled brats complaining about? They're free (to choose from twenty different hamburger chains)! Get off my lawn!!!"
All of this may sound familiar, as it's almost the same as your indignation about the powers that be back in your promise-filled youthful heyday. But there is a striking, hypocritical stance that is new: you have hoarded a large slice of the economic pie, not giving the same opportunities to your youngers that your elders gave to you. You've made us work for peanuts, pontificating that flipping burgers is a great opportunity.
Also, you elected Reagan and Poppa Bush, yet nothing compares to Baby Bush (baby boomerism personified) and his dismal corporate policies, as well as stances towards science in general and global warming in particular. BTW, kids shoot each other in Columbine? Blame Marilyn Manson, panic and turn schools into preludes to Airstrip One (that's Mr George Orwell to you, buddy)!
Regarding the paleolithic sixties, we suspected that you had the power to transcend. It seems that you either didn't, or you blew it (to quote Easy Rider). Either way, the majority of the baby boomer generation has become The Great Disappointment. Your fears have made you selfishly irrational. We don't trust you, we don't believe you, we've tried to like you but you've made it soooo fucking difficult it's damn near out of reach.
Signed,
Proudly, cowardly anonymous.
I use it for business (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Embarressing parents (Score:3, Interesting)
The vast majority of young people are hoodwinked into buying stuff and thinking it and themselves cool/hip/trendy when they're simply meeting the projections of the corporate marketing suits.
Naturally, there's a minority who plough their own furrows, but it's tiny.
So, I'm not likely to use the sentence:
"Hey son, those are some rad tunes on your interblog site! What's that? It's got a good beat!"
And more likely to say something like: "you poor soak, why don't you stop listening to (enter name of hip young band) and try the original..."
Help A Youth - Expose them to Good Music. That's my motto.
Re:I wish the Baby Boomers would just die (Score:3, Interesting)
Nicely done... While not 50 yet, I don't have many years left.
Today's college aged folks are way too distracted by trivial stuff to bother to put together massive protests against Bush & Co. The protests in the 60's had a lot to do with getting out of Vietnam. But where those same protesters failed was in blaming the troops for evils done over seas.