Rachel Anair (from left), Lee Laughner and Deby Cox check out a Facebook page.
Facebook? Green Valley is getting on board By Regina Ford Green Valley News Green Valley News & Sun and The Sahuarita Sun |0 comments
Is nothing sacred?
Once considered a social networking service for college kids to stay connected, Facebook is quickly becoming a communication highway for Baby Boomers. Even members of the Greatest Generation are wading through the Internet trenches and are embracing Facebook to keep up with the grandkids and great-grandkids.
Grandparents who lived through the eras of record players, Polaroid cameras, black and white television and corner pay phones are turning to social media like Facebook, Twitter and Skype to correspond with family and friends, share photos and even play games.
According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 65 percent of adult internet users say they use a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or Linked In, up from 61 percent a year ago. That’s more than double the percentage that reported social networking site usage in 2008 (29 percent).
And for the first time in Pew Internet surveys, it means that half of all adults (50 percent) use social networking sites. When Pew Internet first asked about social networking sites in February 2005, records showed that only 8 percent of Internet users — or 5 percent of all adults — said they used them.
When great-grandmother Lee Laughner, 69, was asked if she used Facebook she didn’t think twice about it: “Of course, for about two years now.”
“I wanted to be found,” Laughner said. “I have been found by old friends of 40 years ago, and I have also found people I had not heard from in many years. It is fun to see what people are up to these days.”
She has friends and family in Europe, “so it is important to me to let them know where I am and what I’m doing.”
Laughner is one of 1,800 Computer Club of Green Valley members. She also teaches computer classes, including beginning Windows 7 classes and Microsoft Office, focusing on Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
“We don’t teach Facebook at the Computer Club, but it’s easy,” Laughner said. “I really like looking at the photos — especially of my great-granddaughter who was born last April. I follow her by looking at the pictures my lovely granddaughter-in-law posts.”
Laughner also corresponds with a nephew in Georgia and her grandson, a sophomore at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
“The only thing is he keeps changing his Facebook name,” she said. “It is Francois this month.”
Laughner says she visits her Facebook site every day to see what new messages are written.
“I don’t write every day, but I do check it out every day.”
Deby Cox, who lives in Green Valley with her husband, Ernie, also has used Facebook for more than two years.
“My granddaughter was appalled when she found out I wasn’t on Facebook,” Cox said. “She helped me set it up and now I, too, use it ever day.”
Cox, 62, says she keeps in contact with her 14-year-old and 17-year-old granddaughters, as well as former students through Facebook.
Early in her career, which included work with the CIA, Cox was a teacher at a Quaker school in Silver Spring, Md., where the curriculum focused on “bright underachievers.”
“The joy of Facebook is connecting with the students all these years later and finding out what they are doing now,” Cox said. “Facebook makes it like a reunion.”
Cox says the photos she shares on Facebook is one of the main reasons she likes to use it.
“It’s so important and rewarding to check in with family and see what they are up to,” she said.
A retired Arizona State University supervisor, Rachel Anair, 79, has been a Facebook user for five years. She, too, was drawn to the world most popular social media service because of the grandkids and to connect with friends.
Games are some of her favorite past-times and she says there is no shortage of Facebook users who like to engage in some friendly Internet competition.
“I play a game called Word with Friends,” Anair said. ”I play with three friends — a niece and one friend from Vermont and a friend from Louisiana. I also play with a niece in New Hampshire.”
Anair said some of her Facebook friends have more than one game going at a time.
“It keeps me connected with my nieces and some of my friends and that’s what I like,” she said.
Anair used to play a game called Farmtown, a social game where you design and manage a farm using the social element of Facebook.
“Then Farmville lured me on, thus I was playing both and decided to have two farms,” she said. “That was fine until Facebook changed all the rules.”
Anair also had two Cafes on Café World, another social media game.
“I honestly loved this game, but again the rules changed so much that I finally gave up all of those games,” Anair said. “Words With Friends is more than enough for me to play,” she said. “Facebook has really been good for me, as a lot of my nieces, nephews, cousins and friends from all over on it, so I do keep connected. I even keep connected with my high school friends in Vermont. So, there is something positive about Facebook.”
Anair has 20 grandchildren, plus their spouces. and 20 great-grandchildren.
“Most of my grandkids are on Facebook and also my oldest great-grandchild,” she said. “It’s a good place to see what they are up to.”
All three Facebook users interviewed said one of their biggest fears about using Facebook is not the security factor or the Internet exposure. Users can accept or decline correspondence from anyone. They all fear their family members posting inappropriate photos or using bad or vulgar language when talking to Facebook friends.
“This follows you in your life and bad language could be seen by a future employer looking for references, or anyone for that matter,” Laughner said.
Cox agrees, “It’s not necessary, and you never know who will see it and it doesn’t go away.”
Anair said she even blocked one of her granddaughters when her language became “inappropriate.”
“You are talking with grandma and I won’t take it,” Anair said. “Use good language and don’t mess with grandma.”
WHAT IS IT?
Facebook is a social networking site. To use Facebook, you must create a free account on the site:www.facebook.com. Facebook’s terms of use state that members must be at least 13 years old. Once you’ve created an account and answered a few questions about work, or school and where you live, Facebook will generate a profile for you.
•More than 800 million active users.
•More than 50 percent of active users log on to Facebook in any given day.
•Average user has 130 friends.
•More than 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages).
•Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events.
•On average, more than 250 million photos are uploaded every day to Facebook.
•More than 70 languages available on the site.
•More than 75 percent of users are outside of the United States.
•More than 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application.
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