There are so many reasons for me not to join the Facebook crowd:
I have four friends, and when I want to talk to them, I call. I am so technologically inept, I have trouble operating the TV remote control. I'd rather spend my idle time curled up in bed with a book than hunched over a computer screen.
But for once, I'd like to be ahead of the curve. Baby boomers like me are the fastest growing demographic on the world's most popular online networking site.
So on Thursday -- the day Facebook officially turned 5 years old -- I signed up. And joined 150 million people who spend, worldwide, 3 billion minutes every day collecting friends; poking, tagging, writing on online walls; and narrating the most mundane moments of their day to an audience of hundreds, or thousands.
Or in my case, an audience of five.
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If you're under 30, you can skip the next paragraph. But If you grew up in the era before call-waiting and color television, you might need a primer on the Facebook phenomenon.
Facebook was launched by a Harvard sophomore as an online network for college students. About four years ago, it expanded to include high schoolers; 18 months ago, it opened to the rest of us
The AARP crowd has been slow to catch on. It's not for lack of computer savvy. There are as many Internet users over 55 as there are in the 18-to-34 demographic.
But my generation tends to think of networking as making small talk at cocktail parties and exchanging business cards. Facebook junkies network through perpetual "status" updates, pithy messages and photos of their friends, vacations, parties and pets that they have posted on their online walls.
The network is easy enough to join. All you need is an e-mail address. It helps to have acquaintances who already subscribe and are willing to accept your invitation to be your friend. This keeps you from looking unpopular.
That was my first obstacle. My four friends aren't online.
The Facebook system helps, by scrolling through your e-mail inbox for recognizable names you can add. The only name that turned up on my search was my youngest daughter's -- the 18-year-old who pitched a fit last year when I tried to sign on to her school's online monitoring service. I now had access to her list of Facebook friends.
She ignored my online friend request. I messaged again, then threatened to start "friending" people on her list. I wondered, what's with all these people I don't know? Like the woman who works for MTV and the middle-aged guy from Minnesota?
