Facebook is toast

I've been amazed by Facebook, the hugely popular social networking website, for several years.

Do you know how it works? Basically, people can register for free, and they get their own Internet page. Except it's way cooler than that, because it creates this spiderweb of relationships, so that registered participants who acknowledge each other as friends can find each other easily, and then find other friends. And after that, make friends with their friends' friends. It's really not as complicated as that sounds.

Part of its popularity owes to the fact updating information and adding pictures is easy. Did you know college students record practically every event of their lives by taking pictures and posting them on their Facebook pages? Yep.

That's how we've kept up with our younger daughter, Molly, all the way through four years at Baylor University. She gave her mama, Joanna, her password. And since someone at every party or trip or other big event took pictures and "tagged" Molly's Facebook page, we've been able to go online and follow our kiddo and her friends all through college.

'Dinosaurs' trample Facebook

But now, Facebook may be on the verge of extinction. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder, should've cashed out in January. The good times have done rolled. Expect to read in the newspapers: "Facebook goes faceup."

My logic? Zillions of people my age are on there now. That can't be cool. 

Instead of college kids talking about last weekend's party or the next big game or who's coming into town next weekend, more and more Facebookers are talking about the great times they had in college, years before today's college kids were even born. Long-lost friends are finding each other, only to discover they now look totally unlike the svelt young things they knew back when. They're sharing pictures of their grandkids.

So, by my calculations, Facebook's 15 minutes in the sun is just about to set.

But maybe I'm wrong.

A new article in the online edition of AdAge acknowledges the aging of Facebook and the other popular social networking site, My Space. Here is part of the report: "As of January, more than 50% of Facebook users and 44% of MySpace users in the U.S. were over 35 years old, according to ComScore estimates. The single biggest age demographic in the U.S. on both Facebook and MySpace is now between 35 and 44. Indeed, Facebook says its fastest-growing demo is 55-plus."

See? What'd I tell you?

But that's not so bad, apparently. "So far, Facebook's aging demos haven't turned off the college set: It's the most popular website on campus above Google and Yahoo, according to an Anderson Analytics poll of college students last fall," the AdAge story says. The story quotes eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson: "Social networking is so engrained into the lifestyle of college students that it wouldn't be any less cool because their parents and grandparents are there."

So, maybe Facebook won't go the way of the cuckoo. Terrific. I'm still learning how to "tag" my photos. And someday, I'll post 25 uninteresting things about me.

Does this feel familiar?

Lately, I've been thinking about why Facebook is so popular. The easy answer—and, in this case, I think, the right answer—is that folks need friends. Facebook is a way to locate and keep up with people who have been significant in your life. 

In a way, Facebook is a technological version of one of the most important aspects of church. It's a place to know and be known. It's a place to tell your story and listen to others. It's a place to show pictures of the things (mostly family and friends) who are most important to you. It's a place to express care and affection.

If our churches were doing that as well as Facebook does, we'd be growing like Facebook.