They Came from the Baby Boom! Your parents want to be friends on Facebook.

I'm a Facebook addict. I have never been coy or shy about this, I have never acted with pretense, I don't make excuses. I'm addicted to all those updates and those juicy "in a relationship/single/it's complicated tags". You think TV's entertaining? Truth is stranger than fiction. That's the appeal.

One day, I went to eat lunch with my Mom. She peered at me over her green-rimmed reading glasses and said  "You must have had fun at the party."

"What party?" I asked.

"The party you had at your house the other night. With all the pictures."

My mind kicked into red alert. How did she know? The answer: Facebook. Betrayed by my own true love, one of the biggest social networking systems on the Internet.

But I wasn't, and am not, alone. More and more, people in the Baby Boomer demographic are signing up for social networking websites. Many want to keep tabs on their kids. Others want to see what the big deal is. And, surprisingly, many want to meet new people and share information. Click here to read the MSNBC article, "Parents and teenagers meet on Facebook".

But what do Teens/Tweens think? According to the article, many like conversing with parents via Facebook and MySpace. It cuts down on drawn out phone calls and makes use of one of the most popular means of communication for Gen-Y. It also gives parents a look at Web 2.0 in a meaningful way.

What does this have to teach us? First, that no one is immune to the world of Web 2.0. Eventually, everyone finds something they like and takes advantage of where the web is going. Second, that no one "target demographic" is using these new forms of communication and thus exclusive marketing can only hamper progress.

How many of our readers who would classify themselves as "baby boomers" use Social Networking? Please respond in our comments section.

Comments

[goinglikesixty]

here via Google Alert on "baby boomer."

Me.
Facebook. Twitter. Tumblr. Flickr. Ning.
But I'm not telling you my username because I don't want to be bothered by whippersnappers.

I leave MySpace for the punks and chicks.