Kids aren’t the only ones using social networking sites

Sarah L. Stewart
April 30, 2008

Dr. Stephen Sheldon’s 19-year-old niece was a bit shocked to learn last Thanksgiving that the Gypsum veterinarian has a Facebook profile.

She thought it was “a little cool, a little creepy” that Sheldon, 47, is also a member of the social networking Web site, which began in 2004 as a way for college students to share friendships and photos and flirt online.

Facebook and similar sites such as MySpace and Friendster allow users to post photos, videos and personal information on a free profile page, which acts as an open forum for friends to send messages and keep tabs on each other. Though launched within just the last five years, each site boasts more than 50 million users worldwide — and they’re not just for teenagers and 20-somethings anymore.

In late 2006, more than half of MySpace visitors were over 35, according to the online data company comScore. A MySpace search for users 35 and older within 10 miles of Vail returns 16 pages of results — at 40 users per page.

In May of last year, several months after Facebook began accepting all users (not just people from universities and certain workplaces) the site had more than 10 million users 35 and older — a 98 percent increase from the previous year, comScore found.

So, though his niece may not agree, Sheldon is far from alone.

Fun for kids and grown-ups, too
Photo swapping, easy communication, innate curiosity about other people’s lives — the same things that made social networking sites so popular among young people have attracted older users, too.

“I just thought it was a cool way to keep in touch rather than just e-mail,” Sheldon says about his decision to join Facebook about six months ago. “I like going to other people’s sites and seeing who they’re friends with.”

He uses the site primarily to keep up with family and his 21 Facebook friends.
Friendships on social networking sites are forged a little differently than in real life. To gain friends, site members look up other members — real-world friends, long-lost loves, or even total strangers — and send them friend requests. If the other person confirms the request, they become friends, and have access to each other’s photos and information. It’s the phenomenon responsible for making ‘friend’ a verb — as in, ‘I can’t believe my ex just friended me.’

Alan Palmer, international sales and marketing manager for Vail Resorts, joined Facebook about nine months ago and already has more than 80 friends.

“I’m kind of proud that I have 80 friends and I haven’t even tried,” Palmer says.

While some get caught up in the quest for more and more friends, others just use social networking sites to stay in touch with the friends they already have. Buzz Schleper, who owns Buzz’s Ski Shop in Vail, joined MySpace a few years ago and has just 14 friends on the site. He uses it mostly to keep up with his sons, 25-year-old Johnny and 17-year-old Hunter.

On MySpace, he can easily see the upcoming shows Johnny’s band, MTHDS, has scheduled and keep track of Hunter’s travels to ski racing events. For the elder Schleper, “It’s just another option” to communicate with his kids.

“All my friends are my kids’ age,” says Schleper, who is in his 50s.

So do his children think it’s cool that dad is on MySpace?

“I think they just tolerate me,” he says.

Johnny Schleper (friend count: 312) says he doesn’t know of anyone else his dad’s age who has a MySpace page — but that doesn’t bother him.

“It’s kinda funny,” Johnny says. “My dad’s a little different than a lot of other parents.”

Changing communication
Just as social networking sites have altered the definition of friendship for both kids and adults, so too has it changed, in some ways, the nature of communication.

“Sites like Facebook and MySpace (along with instant messaging) allow constant communication with lots of people at once,” writes Michele Jackson, communication professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, in an e-mail. “In some ways, it’s mirroring in relationships what we already see in TV shows or the media — extremely short clips, short news blurbs, etc.”

Online communication helps people engage in relationships in short bursts, Jackson says. Palmer is proof: He says that while he wouldn’t sit down to write a letter to many of the people he keeps up with via Facebook, the site makes it simple to send them a quick message.

Social networking sites also allow older users to reconnect with friends they may not have spoken to in 10, 20, 30 years.

Sheldon was “friended” by a college buddy who he hadn’t seen in 15 years. Another old acquaintance, whose last name had changed, required Sheldon to Google her before he could figure out who she was.

Palmer has made similar contact with a college friend.

“I forgot he even existed,” Palmer says.

The only problem with being able to easily learn who from your past has married, moved, had children, divorced and married again: It can be addictive.

“It’s silly, but it’s just a good way to waste time instead of going out enjoying the sunshine,” Palmer says. “The concept is cool, but it’s a real time waster.”

Beyond chatting
Some older members of social networking sites have put them to use in other ways than merely keeping in touch.

For parents like Schleper, joining the site is also a way to keep tabs on what their kids are up to. In fact, that’s why he initially joined MySpace, to monitor his son Hunter.

“Parents have a need to know about these spaces,” Jackson writes. “Part of parenting is knowing who our kids hang out with. It also means being able to know what kinds of conversations they are having with their friends.”

Gary Kerr, 47, uses the site for slightly different purposes: dating. Most dating sites charge a fee, but social networking sites offer a free, open forum to advertise your availability.

“Being a single person here in my age group ... It’s five to one (men to women), and that’s on a good night,” says Kerr, who lives in Minturn. “(MySpace) is just kind of another avenue, but it’s free.”

Still others have taken the sites into the professional realm. Palmer, who works with travel agents from all over the world for his job with Vail Resorts, invited all the agents from a recent visit to the Colorado resorts to join a Facebook group. Though it appealed mostly to the younger agents, it was just one more way to get people to learn about his product, Palmer says.

Facebook and MySpace also both have job posting boards that are searchable by area and job description.

So it seems the kids are going to have to get used to sharing social networking sites with people their parents’ age and older. But they might still hold the advantage in one aspect of the sites: customizing their home pages. MySpace allows users to add music, graphics and other personal elements to their profiles — something Buzz Schleper hasn’t mastered yet.

“I’m not that good with that site,” he says. “I would need my kids to help me figure that stuff out.”