Are Gen Xers too Busy for Facebook?

About a month ago, I read several articles about Facebook and the generation gap. One blog post asked whether Gen X was afraid of using Facebook for networking, and others talked about their low usage of social media tools compared with Gen Y and even Boomers. The following week, a report by Oxygen Media and Lightspeed Research found that 39 percent of Gen Y women proclaim themselves as Facebook addicts. Stats about Facebook accounts came out this week on Social Media Today -- more than 40% of the US population has an account.

It got me thinking about my own experience. Every morning I open email, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to check in on my contacts and look for potential job leads. Then I looked at my own circle of friends and family... maybe half of them are on Facebook or LinkedIn. I decided to do an informal survey of my fellow Gen Xers to find out what tools they use, why they are not active in social networks and how they communicate with friends/family. I received a handful of responses to an email and spoke to several more people at BBQs over the last month.

It turns out the majority of my friends who are not active in social networks are either teachers or stay-at-home moms. In their roles they are not required to spend a lot of time online, and don't have much use for LinkedIn or Plaxo. The main reason they gave for not using Facebook was lack of time. I understand. It has taken me a while to write this blog because I underestimated the amount of distraction spending all day with a 5 year-old would cause. Anyway, phone is the primary method of communication for my respondents, followed by email. I know they don't email much since I get an email maybe once a month with updates, and some people did not respond to my request for help. When they do send emails, they use it to share pictures rather than a through a photo sharing site, like Shutterfly or Snapfish.

My friends/family who do work also responded that they don't have time for Facebook. They use email more often than those at home, but spent most of their time online doing job-related activities or paying bills. Even my husband who uses LinkedIn for work complained about the time it takes to log in to a separate site when he gets the email alerts. He also claimed that it can be a major time suck because once you're on the site, there are a lot of things to do. An entrepreneur friend is on Facebook (barely), but not on LinkedIn. Although we've discussed the value of LinkedIn for job hunting and business development for my world, he doesn't see the need for it in his business. One of my cousins said he would use any of the social networking tools when his writing career took off and he saw a clear business ROI in developing/maintaining those networks. I think the new tools in Facebook and LinkedIn make it easier to group friends/companies to quickly scan for relevant information.

Privacy came in a close second as a Facebook deterrent. As some of the articles mentioned, my Gen X friends are surprised by Gen Y's need to share everything. My friends would rather send an email to a select group than risk their personal information getting into the wrong hands. Facebook, for my friends, seems to be an all or nothing activity. Perhaps if we grew up with tools that enabled us to share more, we would. Maybe Tammy Erickson, Harvard Business Review contributor and author of What's Next, Gen X? is right. She notes that as a group, Gen Xers are intensely private, mistrustful and strongly committed to a small circle of friends. I was dragged into Facebook when I was promoting Groundswell, and now I'm addicted. It's not the first thing I check every morning, but close.

Any other ideas on what's causing the generation gap? Are we more resistant to change than those a generation ahead? Maybe when our kids are in college, we'll join to check up on them.