Facebook, MySpace, and Feeling Old

I received a Facebook invitation by email the other day from a friend who is 12 years my junior. He just turned 28 - not Gen X.

So - although I'm sure my daughter will be appalled - I set up a profile and checked it out - and I turns out that I have more friends on Facebook than I realized - at least 8. Of course only one of them was my age, but no surprise there. (I think it's interesting that the 20-yr-olds are using this is a HUGE way, and the 30/40-yr-olds are just about totally ignoring it....)

What really cracked me up was that a search for people from my high school graduating class of almost 300 people revealed... just me. The class just before ours had 2 people and just after ours had 5. That's it. We're all turning 40 this year and none of us are using Facebook. We are officially OLD.

I also have a MySpace profile, and most of my "friends" there are local artists or former students. All much younger than I am. I started it as a professional tool to keep in touch with the local arts community while I was the arts coordinator at PHHS, but now it's just entertaining.

So I'm reflecting on how my generation doesn't seem to be in on the fun, and then I get an update email from LinkedIn - a professional networking site that I think is a kick, but in this context, just looks like Facebook for Old Folks.

Sigh.