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."
All this makes me think of is... (Score:4, Funny)
over 50 or over 35 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:over 50 or over 35 (Score:5, Funny)
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Mod parent brutal (Score:2)
IIRC... (Score:2)
Re:over 68! (Score:2)
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Seriously, tho, it'll make for interesting mentorships, but then it would give ms a chance to pull the wool over the eyes of any companies in position to make Facebook look like it's going to "take off" under ms' "stewardship"...
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This study just shows how self centered kids are these days. Their entire use of the internet revolves around instant messaging and posting naked photos of themselves a
The question is (Score:2, Funny)
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CAPTCHA: ambled
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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.
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oh, dear (Score:5, Insightful)
So the over-50's were never drink-addled undergrads? Does this mean I'm not going to make it to 50?
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Anyone who is posting on Slashdot in their 50s has had no life.
Re:oh, dear (Score:4, Funny)
The rest of you have to go to school or WORK. Shudder. And a Beer and Slashdot,
what could be better?
Don't say Camming Nude, that is SOOO CUSEEME ! Circa 1995.
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It's quite sad really, but most people don't have a life.
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Ironic isn't it?
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(Swings microphone stand) That's what they saaay...you're riding high in April -- shot down in May..
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It's probably best not to generalize.
Yes, I'm in the IT industry.
I'm a unix systems administrator level 2.
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Your generalization misses the bitter and lonely divorced men in their 50s, who had a life and lost it.
(Who, me? Not yet, anyway.)
Re:oh, dear ... don't despair (Score:2)
No, you'll just have a missing year [salon.com]. It will never have happened.
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Hehehe...I'm reminded of something I think W.C.Fields once said, "I feel sorry for people that don't drink, when they wake up in the morning, that's the best they're going to feel all day..."
The math's not wrong! (Score:3, Interesting)
A dream come true... (Score:5, Funny)
But now that the elder generation is seeking parity with the younger, we can at last unveil the full weaponry of the internet.
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Definitivly confirmed as true. (Score:5, Funny)
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Well, I'm 58 and my son (18) has threatened a facial tattoo if I do join
What, you're not gonna let him threaten to tattoo you and get away with it, are ya?
Oh. Never mind.
Meh. My 18-YO threatens me with that and I'll laugh into his not-yet-tattooed face. I won't be paying for the tat, and if Mr. Rocket Science wants to inflict that much pain on himself, why not? Stupidity is its own reward.
BTW, I'm not 50 yet. And I decline to join a social network. I've already got a perfectly-good antisocial network goin
Recommendation, or condemnation? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've passed my [drink]-addled college years and haven't passed 50 yet, but I have to say, FP author, you've managed to write a summary that insults pretty much everybody! Kudos!
That said, clearly the presense of these older folks on the ego-aggregator networks demonstrates that some of them still do have drink-addled minds.
A recent study showed that nearly one third of Facebook users are aged between 35 and 54
Statistics abuse time - That also means that a third of facebook users have ages between 35 and 84! Quick, re-write the FP title, the Octogenarian Invasion has begun!
Great I'm in that demographic now (Score:3, Funny)
Get off my Lawn!
So now they can deliver the message (Score:2)
Get off my LAN, you punk kids.... (Score:2)
but as Yogi Berra said, "Nobody goes there anymore - it's too crowded."
Facebook is dead. (Score:3, Funny)
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A wholly own subsidiary of the WellBackInMyDay corporation.
~X~
Embarressing parents (Score:3, Funny)
"Hey son, those are some rad tunes on your interblog site! What's that? It's got a good beat!"
Thank god they can't dance online. (obligatory Mary Whitehouse experience reference)
In fact my mother just set up a facebook page, the horror.
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One of the first and most dangerous leaps in this direction was Apple's iWeb, which took the geek factor (read: intimidating) out of the picture.
So, lesson one for the time being: dissuade your mom from getting both a scanner and an iMac. If she's just a
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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
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The Monkees outsold
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Or maybe mom and dad grew up with - and like - the rock and roll that's dead as a popular genre, so they follow the indie niche inheritors of that stylistic mantle.
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"embarrassing messages" ? : wait till we scan in and post the embarrassing childhood photos and videos (your childhood, not ours !).
What about... (Score:2)
Old people party crazy too (Score:2)
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Just curious, otherwise your just being a clueless idiot
My Demographic (Score:5, Funny)
Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
.
Older people, like everyone else, have a need for social interaction. But as they grow older, they are less and less willing to go out and/or meet up in the traditional sense - bars, restaurants, etc. Soc. network are ideal for them - they are easy to use and through them, the older crowd can fulfill their basic human need without having to leave their home.
Anyway, if Facebook make just one mother stop complaining to her grown up children about not visiting - we should all rejoice!
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No, instead she'll just complain that the kids never write on her wall...
*Social* Networks?? (Score:2, Insightful)
I thought the whole point of "Social Networking" was to be socialiable??!!
One of the great aspects of the Internet was anyone could take part, no matter your race, religion, colour or *age* everyone is equal behind the keyboard.
After reading some of the negative comments on this thread it saddens me there are people who obviously find people of "a certain age" offensive.
Me? I am 37 years old and have no hang-ups or insecurites about my age at all (I never did)!
As this thread continues I am hoping m
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Hopefully. There is another option one that most people would do just about anything to avoid. So yeah, if you're luck you *will* reach that age.
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As this thread continues I am hoping many more positive posts will outweigh the negative comments I have seen so far otherwise I will have to re-consider participating in Slashdot.
You, at 37, seem wise beyond your years, and I hope for the sake of like-minded Slashdotters that you stick around. Slashdot is the closest thing to social networking I'd ever consider. Who wants to hang around a bunch of self-absorb
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My ancient weathered fingers can't take the extra typing of the tags on the keyboard!
(ironically I am wearing a 'splint' on my left hand due to a RSI! a sure sign of old age - maybe I should stop typing from the bedroom window!)
Ahhh there's my sense of humour I wondered where it went to!
Joking aside...
This is the only forum I feel I truly belong - I very seldom post comments anywhere else.
There are people from many different backgrounds here whi
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No, the point of "Social Networking" is to find people JUST LIKE YOU, only in a much larger area than you can cover with traditional networking.
That was just Usenet (before it was dominated by binaries).
First of all... (Score:4, Funny)
Which includes
Gwen Stefani
Cameron Diaz
Drew Barrymore
This is not your moms generation this is your younger hot stepmoms generation
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'Boomers!
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Either way, it's a (relatively) pointless definition/label, in my mind.
And they call them: (Score:2)
I use it for business (Score:4, Interesting)
It was our party all along (Score:2)
Looks around for an exit (Score:2)
Funny when that happened, I would start either packing up to leave with him or looking for a way to leave before he sees me... either way, I left the party.
Get the hell off my lawn! (Score:2)
Intertoober 2: "I don't know, maybe it's an old woman"
Intertoober 3: "Woof woof! On the intertoobs, nobody knows you're a geezer!"
Looks like one of the geezers running the Telegraph finally got an internet connection, and with awe and amazement discovered that he wasn't the only one.
I've been on the internet since 1997 when I started my web site [mcgrew.info], originally hosted by my ISP before registering the domain. I ran a FPS gaming site from late that year for a
Speaking as a member of the 35 - 54 demographic (Score:2)
Reading these posts has been a bit surreal. "Old" really is just a point-of-view isn't it? Don't fear this demographic, OK?. For most of us, this is right about the time in our careers where we can finally afford the really "cool" toys.
As for me, not only do I have a MySpace page, I have an "Artist" MySpace page because I do stand-up comedy in the Baltimore/DC area.
To see friends pages (Score:2)
Facebook's domain restrictions work (Score:2)
Over-90s Invade the Social Networking Scene! (Score:2)
Over-50s Invade the Social Networking Scene
Make that over-90's! And I'm not even talking about people who are exactly 99 on MySpace, I mean come on, has someone been pouring massive doses of testosterone in the water back in 1907 or what?
50 on myspace (Score:2)
I cancelled it, and fortunately hadn't used any real infomation (except my age). So, do the younger guys get the same messages? (I don't want to think about the crap my 17 year old daught
Built-in Parental Control (Score:2)
I'm on Facebook and MySpace, the only reason: My kids can be on only if they add me as a friend.
I don't post random embarrassing messages on their walls or post those fun playing-naked-in-the-kiddie-pool pictures from their younger days. The message is that I care enough about them to want to have an awareness of what is going on but also show them they can trust me enough not to be snooping around all the time and getting in the way.
Truth is, I haven't log
Outdated statistics, maybe? No? (Score:2)
Browsing through ComScore's website for the study that's quoted in the article, I found this study from October 2006 [comscore.com]. The numbers quoted are awfully close to the info in the news article, so I'm guessing that we're looking at one of two things:
Re:I wish the Baby Boomers would just die (Score:5, Insightful)
The first two answers that came to my mind: the computer industry and the Cold War.
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Re:I wish the Baby Boomers would just die (Score:5, Insightful)
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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 l
Re:I wish the Baby Boomers would just die (Score:4, Informative)
A quote from the Wikipedia Generation X page:
According to the US Census Bureau, from 1993 to 2006, males grossed less than their fathers (defined as the cohort 30-years prior, about the average age of fatherhood) at the same age, using combined real median income and based on the following criteria:[6]
* At ages 25-34, those born from about 1965-1981
* At ages 30-39, those born from about 1963-1976
* At ages 25-39, those born from about 1964-1981
It's been widely reported that Gen X is the first generation that will not surpass its parents' standard of living.
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Guess who runs the company.
Our generation may be one of the most informed of all. We have the Internet, we have a born cynicism because of previous generations constantly trying to screw us over. However, we can only wait until boomers finally retire for us to outnumber them in the corporate w
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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.
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Re:I wish the Baby Boomers would just die (Score:5, Insightful)
gave women and minorities the same rights as everyone else - You definitely get partial credit for this. However... Rosa Parks was NOT a baby boomer. Martin Luther King? NOT a baby boomer. The suffragettes? NOT baby boomers. Heck, Mary Tyler Moore? NOT a baby boomer! You guys helped, but you were only continuing the momentum started by previous generations.
won the space race - O RLY? Baby boomers born between 1942-1962 (or so, ish) were responsible for the moon landing in 1969? It was a bunch of 7-27 year olds who pulled that off?
I think you may be confusing "Thing that we did" with "thing that I happen to remember that happened before you were born." I'll give you some credit for Vietnam, and sure, you get credit for a lot of great technology in the 80s and 90s. But by the early 90s, Gen Xers were also participating in the tech boom (Gen Xers include: Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell, Larry Page, Sergei Brin, Linus Torvalds, Tom Anderson).
Also, if women's lib and civil rights for minorities defined your generation, I would guess that gay rights is the parallel movement that would define Gen X in many of the same ways.
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OHWAITNO. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the vast majority of the young voters are Democrats (because they don't know any better) and the boomers were the cattle herded into the GWB camp.
But don't blame me, I voted Badnarik.
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-mcgrew
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We multitask well. I am currently enjoying retirement, moderating 2 video chat rooms,
Answering email, drinking a brew, posting on Slashdot and instant messageing to 3 people
at this very momment.
Also I am intermittently loading the dishwasher between sentences.
Re:Prediction (Score:4, Funny)
Oh. And here I was, thinking you just fell asleep between sentences. My bad, sorry.
Re:My mom's on myspace (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to be a general rule in society that parents must sacrifice themselves on an altar for their children. It seems that becoming anything less than a completely devoted man servant to your offspring is a moral wrong. I'm of the opinion that becoming a parent does not oblige you to devote 100% of your (free) time to your children, and that telling your clinging offspring every now and again to push off because you're busy with your own life, will be a benefit to them in the long run.
All that said, if my parents ever do get a social networking account, I will publicly disown them.
Can you please tell that to mom too? (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as I can tell, she's still not over it, but has learned to control herself by now.
Her first conclusion was that someone's obviously manipulating me and my brother against her, when I too sta
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We would have drown you all at birth, but we need someone to serve us our food.