Baby boomers on social networking sites

In his article "Are Baby Boomers Killing Facebook and Twitter," Robert Strohmeyer looks at the effect baby boomers have had on SNS sites.

Strohmeyer says that it should come as no surprise that baby boomers have had such a profound impact on SNS, which one would usually think would be dominated by young people. Because baby boomers are in the mainstream, their activity on SNS validates it as a big market that companies can make money off of.

Strohmeyer also emphasizes that although the young have lost what was once exclusively their own playground, they are not giving up on SNS itself. Instead, they might migrate from one site to another if something new and better comes along, like the migration from MySpace to Facebook.

Family problems frequently play out on SNS sites like Facebook, such as Will Smith (not the actor) getting an friend request on Facebook from his father and worrying his father would post something offensive on his wall not understanding that it is a public forum. There is also the case of older users being concerned about their sons or daughters use on Facebook.

Patterns of Use 

Baby boomers tend to use social networking sites for personal use rather than professional use, though due to the current recession, a trend towards Gen X (anyone born between 1964 and 1984 who primarily use SNS's for professional use) use can be seen (networking)

They use SNS to connect with current and old friends, but usually not to meet and make new friends like younger generations.

Consequences 

Baby boomers have compartmentalized social networking sites. They have been keeping up with younger generations on social networking sites, but there has been an alteration in behavior. For example, Baby boomers might use their SNS for networking with jobs and think that users from Gen Y (born in the 80s and 90s)  who have questionable public profiles as indecent.

The question is, are baby boomers killing SNS? Strohmeyer would argue that they certainly have created a split of connection between the two generations, but have not reduced the function of these sites, but rather made the gap seem more obvious.

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