Social-networking site allows people to connect great distances
Staff writer
The technological world moves fast.
“I’m just old fashioned,” Shirley Bowers of Marion said. “I would rather use e-mail.”
Facebook seems to be an Internet innovation that has staying power. In its fifth year of existence, Facebook has over 300 million users worldwide.
Bowers is a daily Facebook user. She checks Facebook twice a day to keep up with her relatives in other parts of the country. She has also used the chat feature to talk with her granddaughter who is a Navy nurse in Portsmouth, Va.
“If I didn’t have it,” she said. “I wouldn’t know what I was missing.”
Bowers is 79 years old and by no means the target audience that Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg had in mind for his social-networking site launched in February 2004. Facebook grew from including only college students, to inviting high school students, to allowing everyone to join.
Byron McCarty of Hillsboro is an avid vintage vinyl collector. McCarty keeps in touch with a collector buddy, who lives in South Carolina, through Facebook. McCarty’s Facebook fluency blossomed and he started talking to his other friends on the site. He has also reconnected with some of his Marion High School classmates.
“I just think it’s kind of interesting,” he said. “You find people you haven’t talked to in years.”
McCarty is a Hillsboro City Council member. He is 62 and retired.
Both McCarty and Bowers are relative newcomers to Facebook — McCarty has only used the site for about a month and Bowers’ daughter created her account earlier this year. In contrast, some high school students have been using Facebook for four years.
“The young folks know how to do things,” Bowers said. “If I have a problem (with Facebook), I talk to them.”
Chris Guetersloh is a Marion High School senior who has used Facebook since his brother created an account for him his freshman year.
He’s stayed with the site through the controversial format changes in 2007 — where the Facebook update and news feed were the new prominent features when users opened their respective pages — and uses the site to stay updated with his friends’ status and pictures.
“It’s just a great way to keep in touch with everyone,” Guetersloh said.
Guetersloh said that he updates his status on a regular basis, at least daily.
Ashley Buckner, another MHS senior, is part of the next evolution of social networking. She can use her Internet-enabled phone to update her status on a minute-to-minute basis. She doesn’t abuse this ability because that is one of her pet peeves with Facebook.
“(People) update their status and they don’t know that people know what they are talking about,” she said. “I just don’t put down something stupid (in my status update).”
Buckner uses Facebook to keep up with her aunt and uncle in Kentucky, her cousins in Oklahoma, and her friends. Buckner is another four-year veteran of the site and has noted some the negative aspects of Facebook.
“There’s a lot of unnecessary groups,” she said. “A lot of groups get shut down because of saying stuff on wall posts.”
The types of groups that are on Facebook have also changed considerably. After the site’s initial inception, common interests were the main basis for groups — like fans of sports teams or bands joined a group expressing their support — and the participation and cooperation between members was nonexistent. Now, active groups have Facebook accounts.
For example, Jeannie Wildin set up a Facebook page for Valley United Methodist Church in Marion. Wildin is also an experienced Facebook user; like Buckner and Bowers she uses the site to keep in touch with relatives living as far away as Brazil and the Netherlands Antilles. She also keeps up with members of Chrysalis, a Christian teen group.
Businesses are starting to use Facebook as well. Marion businesses PLANTations and Aunt Bee’s have Facebook pages where they give updates about their products.
“Everyone goes on Facebook. It’s just another way to get people’s attention,” PLANTations owner Tamara Christiansen said. “It is instant gratification.”