Rumors of a decline in Facebook usage has me puzzled. I don't see a shortage of Facebook posters; to the contrary, I see more and more people spending their time wandering the pages of this site. What I do see is a change in the demographics of Facebook. When I first started looking at Facebook, which honestly wasn't often, I often felt it's content wasn't necessarily what I was interested in.
A great deal of the posters seemed to be young, mostly high school and college students and twenty-somethings, certainly not a bad thing. But it didn't seem like a place that a Baby Boomer like myself would spend a lot of time on, so I devoted more time to LinkedIn, a business site more tuned in to what I wanted to know about. I soon found out that's not the case today; the average age of the posters has probably gone up into the 40's and 50's. It's not the kid's place anymore, in fact, most young adults don't post much there. It's become the highway for the Boomers and their families, which prompted me to check it out more often.
But now I have officially become a Facebook junkie; it's true, I have! I'm not sure when it happened, but it did, and I have to LMAO because of it! I now open the day with a visit to Facebook, and then I keep the window open all day until I go to bed at night. I probably check to see what's going on at least ten times a day; it's probably more, but I don't really want to know. But I know I'm not alone.
There are so many friends and family members who spend as much time as me browsing the pages, and I'm guessing by their quick likes and comments that they spend as much time as I do refreshing the Home page to see if there's something new. It's crazy! Here's the hook for me; I have reconnected with so many people from my past on this site and I've made so many new friends that not browsing through it makes me feel like one of them might have posted something that I'd miss if I didn't check in.
I now look forward to the videos and cartoons scattered throughout my timeline. It was just a few months ago that I didn't even know how to share something, and I rarely commented on any of the posts I read. Now I find myself commenting on all sorts of things, and sharing things that I think are funny or worthy of passing along. I've even started to copy recipes that look good; I whipped up a Shrimp Mozambique a few nights ago, and last night I put together an applesauce bread that was a great accompaniment to a Faux Chicken Pot Pie I made (faux meaning I didn't bother to make a crust, just the ingredients).
It was just a couple years ago that I didn't even know what LOL was. I'd see this in emails and text messages, and thought it might mean "lots of love" (I'm a romantic at heart), but when it started appearing in messages from guys, I decided it was time I updated my linguistic files to include the SM abbreviations. I still get a little confused, but I'm learning.
So here's to all my family and friends, both old and new, that spend so much time on Facebook. When you find out how to curtail your addiction, please let me know! Maybe there's an SMA (Social Media Addiction) group somewhere that can help us all, or maybe there's an ongoing group on Facebook we could all join!
Until then, it's LOL (lots of love)!
Mark T. Bradbury, Author
Literary Associate of Little Pond Publishing
Digital Publisher | eBooks | Marketing
No comments:
Post a Comment