Maxwell 56: Mary Found Freedom to Get Engaged

[JermajestyDuggar]

15 minutes ago, Milly-Molly-Mandy said:

Yep I'm an elder millennial and all my friends are (mostly reluctantly) on Facebook for the groups. Local Mums groups, local neighbourhood groups etc.  

We don't post the same way our boomer parents post on Facebook but we are still using it. 
 

 

Exactly. There are neighborhood groups and for sale sites I use and get a lot of info from when it comes to my children’s school. I actually don’t post that much. But I’m often checking for local event and school info.

[Loveday]

I'm on Facebook a LOT, but I don't post much. I'll comment on others' posts occasionally, and I'm involved in several groups, mostly genealogy- or history-based. I use FB to stay in touch with extended family, use the Messenger feature to contact my kids when I need to, and also to catch the news during the day as I don't turn the TV on until the evening. I'm a Boomer, so...am I using FB the way other Boomers do? I didn't realise FB usage was different according to generation. 

[MamaJunebug]

I was gonna say, “Well, my kids use FB” but I remembered the youngest one is 37, so ….

[LilMissMetaphor]

Ok, I'll say it: their children are going to have a lot of teeth.

[Loveday]

40 minutes ago, MamaJunebug said:

I was gonna say, “Well, my kids use FB” but I remembered the youngest one is 37, so ….

Yeah, my youngest is 31. LOL. She uses FB regularly, but not excessively. She probably has Instagram and Twitter but has not shared those accounts with me and I'm fine with that. She has her own life and doesn't need Mom constantly commenting on her cute cat and dog photos or liking her tweets. My 33 year old son uses FB regularly, too, but again, I rarely comment or like his stuff as I don't want to be THAT mom. 😆

[Jana814]

I’m 42 & I use Facebook. I don’t post much. Part of the reason I still use it is 1) I still like it & 2) if need be I can block people. 

[Black Aliss]

I think a lot of us in our 70's and older use it to maintain long-time friendships with people who live far enough away that if we see them at all in person, it's maybe once a year. I don't like talking on the phone and arthritis in my hands makes it hard to write the long chatty letters that some of use wrote in the Time Before Kids and Careers.

I like having one small private group with three other friends; we were last close geographically over 50 years ago. Now it's rare that a day goes by without at least one of us checking in.Another private group consists of people I hung out with in the 90's. It's kind of nice knowing that if we do get to meet up in person we won't have to spend the entire time catching up on the last 3/5/10/20 years.

[Coconut Flan]

FB was the only guaranteed contact I had with most of my mother's relatives.  It seems odd, but it was an easy way to tell them she'd passed.  I wasn't up to calling each one personally either.  

[theologygeek]

On 11/23/2022 at 7:18 PM, Bluebirdbluebell said:

I hope Sarah is active and found something to keep her busy. It would be good if it was a hobby that she enjoyed. She's 40 not 65.  I hope she's found something exciting to do. 

Also Facebook is considered a site for Boomers. (Yes, I technically have one, but I try not to use it that often.)

That's a rumor that won't die.  The opposite is true.  I advertise on facebook and target the audience.  The age group that uses facebook the most is between the ages of 25 and 34.  Second most is the 18 to 24 year age group.  On the bottom of the list is age 65 and older.  Then the second bottom is 13 to 17.  The third bottom is 55 to 64.  Fourth from the bottom is 45 to 54.  

[JermajestyDuggar]

13 minutes ago, theologygeek said:

That's a rumor that won't die.  The opposite is true.  I advertise on facebook and target the audience.  The age group that uses facebook the most is between the ages of 25 and 34.  Second most is the 18 to 24 year age group.  On the bottom of the list is age 65 and older.  Then the second bottom is 13 to 17.  The third bottom is 55 to 64.  Fourth from the bottom is 45 to 54.  

I think that boomers post a lot. So it seems like they are on fb more. While the younger set will get on fb without posting anything. So it seems like they are on fb less. 

[theologygeek]

On 11/24/2022 at 5:30 PM, Milly-Molly-Mandy said:

Yep I'm an elder millennial and all my friends are (mostly reluctantly) on Facebook for the groups. Local Mums groups, local neighbourhood groups etc.  

We don't post the same way our boomer parents post on Facebook but we are still using it. 
 

 

That's not correct either.  I spend a great deal of money on facebook ads.  The statistics I just posted are also true for who posts the most statuses, etc  Also, in my own experience, and in the fb groups that I admin, boomers use groups more than millennials do.  I admin 4 buy and sell groups.  

12 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I think that boomers post a lot. So it seems like they are on fb more. While the younger set will get on fb without posting anything. So it seems like they are on fb less. 

It might seem like that, but it's not according to statistics.  

[Milly-Molly-Mandy]

4 hours ago, theologygeek said:

That's a rumor that won't die.  The opposite is true.  I advertise on facebook and target the audience.  The age group that uses facebook the most is between the ages of 25 and 34.  Second most is the 18 to 24 year age group.  On the bottom of the list is age 65 and older.  Then the second bottom is 13 to 17.  The third bottom is 55 to 64.  Fourth from the bottom is 45 to 54.  

Very interesting! My kids babysitter is German, I am Australian. This may vary by country. Where are you? 

[theologygeek]

22 minutes ago, Milly-Molly-Mandy said:

Very interesting! My kids babysitter is German, I am Australian. This may vary by country. Where are you? 

I'm in the US.  The numbers I gave you are global statistics, not just the US.  

[Audrey2]

See it seems to me like a lot of schools, ptos (parent-teacher organizations), and communities use their Facebook pages quite regularly to update people, so I'm guessing that younger people with kids would be tuning into these more to stay informed, even if they're using Instagram for their own personal social media.

[hoipolloi]

My millennial family members certainly use FB a lot, especially school & community pages and the local marketplace. They may not post a ton on their own pages but theyʻre definitely on FB regularly.

 

[Jana814]

6 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

My millennial family members certainly use FB a lot, especially school & community pages and the local marketplace. They may not post a ton on their own pages but theyʻre definitely on FB regularly.

 

This is what I do. I will post happy birthday on my friend’s walls. I will post happy holidays via my wall. I also follow a lot of animals pages, tv show pages, celebrity pages & community pages but I rarely post on those pages. (I will like or love a comment). One of my friends runs a community page for parents in the area. Although I am not a parent I will advertise my business on it.  (I know her & she let me join to promote my business). 

Edited November 26, 2022 by Jana814

[anachronistic]

I am still quite active on FB - I’m 39. But I used to post more often before I figured out a few years ago that people cultivate an image there. I didn’t realize that. I thought that people were honest. I’m still pretty honest but I leave out the really bad and hard parts now because I don’t want to depress other people. For example, I posted a nice Thanksgiving message because a lot of people were doing that, but I didn’t say that my 2 friends and I spent a lot of the day talking about death and physician assisted suicide, because that’s depressing as hell.

I still use it because find FB useful. I love my local Buy Nothing group and community pages. I love how when I posted about how I had a cold but my OCD was telling me it was covid despite negative tests, multiple people chimed in that their families have also had colds that weren’t covid. It was incredibly useful after my surgery to update people, and I know others who use it to disseminate health stuff, too. I still don’t socialize or go to church due to covid and FB and Twitter have been lifelines to others in the same situation.  I keep my friends list fairly short, about 150 people, and they have to pass the ‘dinner’ test - pre-pandemic (because no way in hell am I doing this now with anyone) would I go out of my way to have dinner with you if you were in town on fairly short notice? If the answer is yes I’ll friend you. If not, nope. It means I only connect with people I genuinely want to connect with.

[Sk8ter]

I have to laugh that only once in any of this generational talk has GenX been mentioned. 

There's an entire generation that exists between Boomers and Millenials. The youngest Boomers are 60. The oldest Millenials are 42. When you talk about people between 43 and 60, those are GenXers, not Boomers.

FB was not invented for Boomers, nor is it "for Boomers". It was originally made for Millenials by a Millenial.

I'm not sure why we spend so much time drawing lines around which generations are "allowed" to use which social media platforms. My kids are GenZ and they have a stroke if they see anyone outside their own age group using SnapChat. No wonder this country has problems. We can't even let a variety of people use social media without saying "That's yours, this is mine" 

[JermajestyDuggar]

2 hours ago, Sk8ter said:

I have to laugh that only once in any of this generational talk has GenX been mentioned. 

There's an entire generation that exists between Boomers and Millenials. The youngest Boomers are 60. The oldest Millenials are 42. When you talk about people between 43 and 60, those are GenXers, not Boomers.

FB was not invented for Boomers, nor is it "for Boomers". It was originally made for Millenials by a Millenial.

I'm not sure why we spend so much time drawing lines around which generations are "allowed" to use which social media platforms. My kids are GenZ and they have a stroke if they see anyone outside their own age group using SnapChat. No wonder this country has problems. We can't even let a variety of people use social media without saying "That's yours, this is mine" 

I’m a millennial married to a Gen x man. He laughs and says he loves that they are all forgotten or ignored. He says let the millennials fight it out with the boomers while all the Gen-xers just sit in the sidelines with their popcorn and watch. 

[Loveday]

5 hours ago, Jana814 said:

This is what I do. I will post happy birthday on my friend’s walls. I will post happy holidays via my wall. I also follow a lot of animals pages, tv show pages, celebrity pages & community pages but I rarely post on those pages. (I will like or love a comment). One of my friends runs a community page for parents in the area. Although I am not a parent I will advertise my business on it.  (I know her & she let me join to promote my business). 

You just described me almost to a T on Facebook. I do like to share the occasional comic strip or meme, but otherwise I generate almost no actual posts or original content. Just the occasional comment, plus lots of likes/loves/whatever.

3 hours ago, anachronistic said:

I am still quite active on FB - I’m 39. But I used to post more often before I figured out a few years ago that people cultivate an image there. I didn’t realize that. I thought that people were honest.

I have an extended family member who does this. He's one of those who is constantly posting about his fantastic relationship with his wife, or humble-bragging about all the great things he's doing for his employees or for the community, or showing off the latest cruise or other vacation, of which there are many each year. And yet I know, after knowing him and his wife for over 35 years, pretty much exactly what's behind the facade. He's just an expert spin doctor and slick talker. He missed his calling. He should have gone into politics.🙄

3 hours ago, Sk8ter said:

I have to laugh that only once in any of this generational talk has GenX been mentioned. 

There's an entire generation that exists between Boomers and Millenials. The youngest Boomers are 60. The oldest Millenials are 42. When you talk about people between 43 and 60, those are GenXers, not Boomers.

FB was not invented for Boomers, nor is it "for Boomers". It was originally made for Millenials by a Millenial.

 

There's another generation that gets lost in the shuffle, and it's dying out at an alarming rate. The Silent Generation. It's the one right after the Greatest Generation, and my mother was a part of it. She LOVED Facebook. She didn't quite understand all its features, but she logged on every day and followed all sorts of pages and kept in touch with old friends, most of whom were also of her generation and also loved (or still do, the ones that are still alive!) FB.

Also, as far as I know, I don't think anyone has ever claimed FB is 'for Boomers.' We just tend, for the most part, to enjoy the hell out of it.😏

[Black Aliss]

4 hours ago, Sk8ter said:

There's an entire generation that exists between Boomers and Millenials. The youngest Boomers are 60. The oldest Millenials are 42. When you talk about people between 43 and 60, those are GenXers, not Boomers.

I think GenZs and Millennials tend to think of anyone older than a Millennial as a Boomer. The GenXs appear to far outnumber Boomers at Trump rallies and White Supremacist marches. That makes sense because as a generation they were always more conservative than us Boomers. #NotAllGenXers #NotAllBoomers

[JermajestyDuggar]

I think because there are just a ton of boomers in general, the loudest ones seem like the ones who want everyone to think of when they think of boomers. My in laws are very liberal boomers. But my parents are right wing boomers. The right wing boomers in my family are way louder than the liberal boomers in my family. 

[Ozlsn]

2 hours ago, Loveday said:

There's another generation that gets lost in the shuffle, and it's dying out at an alarming rate. The Silent Generation. It's the one right after the Greatest Generation,

I'd never heard of that one - is that born between ~1926 and 1946? (Asuming Greatest Generation are old enough to fight in WW2 here).

As far as I knew the Boomers were the first to get a generational name, mostly through weight of numbers. My parents are both (towards the end of the) war babies - all the advantages of the infrastructure being expanded for the Boomers with less of the crowd!

Love to see Mary looking so happy, and hope she and Sam have a relaxed engagement period. 

[Loveday]

16 minutes ago, Ozlsn said:

I'd never heard of that one - is that born between ~1926 and 1946? (Asuming Greatest Generation are old enough to fight in WW2 here).

 

You're very close, 1928 to 1945. They kind of got lost in the shuffle because of the war, I guess. 

[Audrey2]

Speaking as a gen xer (but not conservative), many of us were in middle and high school in the 80s and early 90s. In my opinion my age group was heavily politically influenced by Ronald Reagan and to a much lesser extent George Bush. There were Republicans in the White House from 1981 until 1993.  I bet if you did a poll of those who were in high school with me (the three years before I graduated as well as the three years after) that the majority would consider themselves Republicans and conservatives, which I believe is one of the reasons Ohio has turned from a purple state to a red state, as well as some of the other states.