Are You On Facebook? If Not, Why Not?

Are you on Facebook or My Space or one of the dozens of other social networks on the internet? If not, you ought to get with it.

You are too old, you say; or you don't have the time; or you don't want to share information about yourself with a bunch of strangers.

Consider the following: 175 million people worldwide are on Facebook. My Space has 130 million users, of which 6.9 million are 55 years of age or older.

I have chosen to be on Facebook because it is so easy to get on the network and to participate. I don't spend more than 10 minutes a day engaged in it, and most of that time is spent answering emails from folks who could otherwise be emailing me at my regular address. I control the amount of information about myself that I post, and it is a whole lot less than anyone can find by googling me.

In the not-all-that-distant future, all but a few newspapers will be gone. The evening news programs on the national TV broadcast networks will have signed off for the last time.

We will be receiving more and more of our daily dose of news and other information over the internet. An ever-increasingly important source will be the social networks. If you have not already done so, you might as well come to understand this new paradigm, because eventually you will have to.

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