Look, Mom, you're on Facebook
Facebook, which likes to pride itself on the fact that more than half of its users are between 30-55 years old, appears to to alienating this very age group, many of whom use the 'net mainly for emailing and sending forwards (e.g., jokes, pictures).
With an active audience of 200-300 million users, Facebook has definitely become a household item. And the fastest growing demographic is the 35+ age bracket, according to the Facebook statistics page.
Facebook employees have even expressed excitement that the social network's user base reaches past the internet-savvy generations and includes older users. Even our mothers are on Facebook, they've written in blog posts and comments.But Facebook has undergone some changes in the past month that may threaten that trend.
Under growing pressure from competitors like competitors like Twitter, Facebook altered its interface, enhanced its filtering and real-time updating, and increased emphasis on sharing media and links with friends. (FriendFeed, too, has become more of a real-time communication tool.)
But these recent changes to the site's layout and usability - which some may think are brilliant - are making the site too complicated for moms, TechCrunch observes. The "new Facebook" is not exactly user-friendly for people who are trying out social networks for the first time, and may even be downright baffling.
The number one complaint is that users seem to have trouble configuring privacy settings for various photo albums and Friend Lists. The default sharing option on a new photo is "Everyone," meaning that unless it is adjusted, picutres will be shared publicly.
Also, new users are set by default to share their information with everyone else on their network, which if you follow Facebook’s advice during the sign-up, can be people from an entire region (i.e., New Orleans).
Some have suggested that Facebook should offer a clearly indicated, easy-to-use safety setting that caters to the non-internet-savvy users who are not aware of the constant threat of scams and phishers and who have been taught not to make changes or adjustments to program settings.
Others point out that the technology gap is probably good - you wouldn’t want your mom to be too knowledgeable, or find her solicited as a MILF (Mothers I’d Like to Facebook).
Regardless, Facebook will have to do something to make the site a little easier to use for those people who - to paraphase T.S. Eliot - are higher than the crowd, but lower than the man of inspiration, but for whom there is always doubt.
In February, CEO Mark Zuckerberg was forced to respond to user concerns about an update to Facebook's cnanged Terms of Use, which stipulate that Facebook owns all content uploaded onto the site and reserves the right to sublicense the content as it sees fit.
