Older generations begin to use facebook.

These days, more and more people are spreading out farther from home and find it increasingly difficult to keep in touch with one another by using conventional means. Such is the case for a womman by the name of Penny Ireland and her family. She has adopted the use of the social networking site, facebook, in order to keep up with her family easily. All of Ireland's five kids and even her 83 year old mother use facebook. In fact it is so handy for them with keeping up with everyone, they call it their "livingroom."

According to the article, more and more of the older generations are joining social networking sites like facebook and myspace in order to keep in contact with younger family members who have been networking for years now. While the older social network users are keeping up with their family, they also find a new use for the sites. They are beginning to reconnect with friends from high school, college, and work.

According to facebook.com, there are now 1.5 million women aged 55 or older on the site. This number is a 550 percent increase from 6 months before. One explanation for the sharp increase in older users is the fact that they are getting invitations for various events from their peers and then realize the legitamacy of the site. Others realize that the social networking won't be disappearing anytime soon and give up going against it and begin to embrace it.

This article really hits home for me. In the past month both of my parents have joined facebook. My dad joined because he got an evite for some work related event. Then my mom joined after a friend of hers coaxed her into joining. They don't really keep tabs on it very much, but they do have it. However, I have yet to add them to my friends due to the fact that I would prefer to have privacy still.

The author of this article is John Sutter for CNN.com and it was posted April 13,2009.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/13/social.network.older/index.html

News Report 4

Apparently, surfing the web during work hours increases productivity. An Australian study done by the University of Melbourne on web surfing for fun during office hours found that there was a 9 percent increase in productivity versus those who were all business and no play.

The author of the study, Brent Coker, said that "workplace internet leisure browsing," or WILB for short, helped to increase the focus of the workers in this study. Coker states that in order to be more productive, one must take some time to zone out from time to time. The key to this he says, is taking short breaks with surfing the web to help relax the brain.

There is a catch to all of this however, the people in the study that showed productivity increase with browsing the internet were only casual internet users. If a person with an internet addiction were to be browsing, it would almost certainly result in a loss of productivity.

I for one, am a bit on the fence about these findings. I do believe that taking a break and letting your mind rest after doing intense thinking will improve your personal productivity, but on the other hand, there are those people with internet addictions. Those with cyber addictions spend countless hours surfing the web. I am included in this group. I will search the web for the most nonsensical things, wasting time on ebay, comedy sites, youtube, wikipedia, among countless other things. In my case, internet hinders my productivity a great deal.

The key to success I suppose, is moderation. Moderation is key with everything. This article was found at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30010342/