Writing a “how-to” book about Facebook aimed at 40-60 year olds would certainly be an interesting task. To start off, I would make sure that my explanations of Facebook as a whole are at a high level of abstraction as to make use of their existing technological frames. For example, I would explain that Facebook serves as a central hub for people to stay in contact with friends and and family. I feel that it’s important to emphasize that the primary use of Facebook is to interact with people you know in real life. This can help to increase a new users comfort level, since if they know that they will be dealing with friends and family, there (hopefully) isn’t as much a level of stress that may arise from putting out personal information on the internet. Of course, Facebook is a public network, and users do need to be concerned about this. But as an entry point, it is probably a safe assumption that a new user looking to talk to friends and family will not do anything to jeopardize their online privacy.
In terms of explaining what Facebook is used for at a more specific-level, I would start by saying that it can be thought of as a bulletin-board of sorts, where your friends frequently pass by to see snippets of what new things are happening in your life and to leave messages commenting on them. I think it’s fairly important to emphasize the bulletin-board aspect to explain that Facebook is more than a one-on-one conversation. As a contrast to email messages, Facebook tends to be more casual, short, and open. Overall, frames play an important role in getting a user comfortable with Facebook, but fortunately, most of the frames that Facebook deals with already exist in a new user’s life, and it is simply a matter of given the user the proper introduction and training.
Training can be a bit hard for Facebook, at least initially, because the service is capable of so much nowadays. I think its important to first explain what it means by joining a specific network and what it allows. Beyond that, establishing an identity, by adding some personal interests, hobbies, and a profile picture help to make the user feel more at home. Once a user has an identity of sorts, helping them seek out a real-life friend on the network is important. As the user finds more friends, they will naturally spend more time on the service, making the return on investment, in terms of personal enjoyment, quite high.
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I like that you stress the importance of stating a central purpose of Facebook to the older users, which may be to interact with people you know in real life such as friends and family. This is important in maintaining their interests in learning to use Facebook, because even if the users do not find it difficult to alter their existing technological frames to adapt to Facebook's features, they will still not use Facebook unless it provides a significant return on investment. For example, a user may be more dedicated to using Facebook if their intended goals for communication with others are met by the many social features of Facebook.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting way of going about training a 40-60 year old in the ways of facebook. I think it's great to start out by establishing the basic powers integral to facebook's popularity, as well as the reasoning behind why they might use it over existing technologies. Seeking out friends or old acquaintances I think is absolutely vital to convincing them that this system will return enough on their investment for them to continue using it since it provides a much simpler way of going about it than any tool before. However, I think it is also important to try to train them in some of the newer features and applications intrinsic to facebook that are not so easily placed within existing technological frames.
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