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PLATTSBURGH — Theresa Flora lives just four miles from her grandmother, but with school and a part-time job, the teen stays pretty busy.
Facebook keeps the 16-year-old Morrisonville girl and Cecile Flora connected, though.
Her grandmother posts short, snappy messages "like, "'How ya doing?' 'I miss you,' stuff like that," Theresa said. "It's nice."
"I really like using it with the grandkids," said Cecile, who's 58.
She also keeps in touch with friends, and Facebook has proven a great tool as she and classmates prepare for their 40th class reunion.
Social networking sites aren't just for kids anymore. Both Facebook and MySpace show increasing numbers of older adults signing up.
In fact, according to MySpace spokeswoman Jessica Bass, older users are among the site's fastest growing demographic. That network claims to have 6.7 million users age 65 and older on its site. Facebook estimates users older than 65 at a few million.
ROLE REVERSAL
Theresa's mother has a Facebook page, the teen said, as does an aunt. And a great-aunt, too.
Carrie Huising, 58, of Saranac starts and ends her day checking her messages. Just now, she's putting Facebook to work arranging her family's annual Adirondack party.
"I think I only had to mail five invitations out of 50," she said. "These are people all over the country."
Family and friends RSVP on Facebook, tell what dishes they'll bring to share, respond to questions such as whether they need to find hotel accommodations or want to pitch a tent in the Huising backyard.
Carrie became computer literate when her youngest son was studying in Egypt.
"He taught me how to do video conferencing so I could see and talk to him," she said. "Now, everything in my house is wireless."
It's been a reversal of roles, for it was Mom who first recognized the value of the computer when her children were growing up. She bought one for home use to make sure her kids would be computer literate.
She was cautious, though, kept the computer in the living room, kept an eye on just what was popping up on the screen.
"There have been things about the Internet that have not been good," Carrie said.
With Facebook, she keeps her page secure, only giving access to family and friends.
"Sometimes, you learn and you get burned," she said.
Sometimes, social networking sites introduce the younger generation to parents and grandparents in a whole new way, for some users share some pretty intimate details about themselves.
"Thankfully," chuckled Carrie, "my children don't post anything on their Facebook page that their mother wouldn't want to see."
Having family as Facebook friends doesn't faze Theresa.
"It doesn't affect my postings," she said.
Dot Smith, 75, of Black Brook, laughs about some of the stories her older son, Charles Forrest Cleland, submitted as answers to a list of 25 questions circulated among Facebook users.
"His whole thing was like a chapter in a book," she said about his lengthy responses.
"I wrote, like, 25 short stories, wild things that happened to me in my life," said Charles, 56, who lives in Plattsburgh.
"Some of those things I sort of suspected," his mother said.
MINIMALIST USER
Charles mostly uses Facebook to get in touch with friends from long ago, to stay connected to nieces and nephews.
He and his mother, who after all don't live far apart, don't rely on Facebook to communicate.
"She just kind of throws a message out there once in a while."
Dot teaches at Plattsburgh State, where students introduced her to networking sites.
"Then my stepdaughter and her family were moving to Arizona — she set up the whole Facebook (page).
"It's quite interesting, the connectedness of it."
Dot doesn't use the tool to the extent younger users tend to do.
How does she know?
"I have, well, say, 23 friends" on Facebook. One of my grandsons has 623."
In part, she's a minimalist user because she's just too busy.
"Sometimes, I say, 'I hate the damn thing," she laughed. "I do see it as it could be intrusive, but you do have a choice."
She does choose to click on to see what her stepchildren and grandchildren far away are up to.
And, she chuckled, "if I haven't heard from them in awhile, I will poke them ..."
E-mail Suzanne Moore at: smoore@pressrepublican.com
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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