ATLANTA — One of the first groups Becky Yarbrough joined after signing up for Facebook was something called "I am too old for Facebook — but I don't care."
Actually, she did care.
"I was a little embarrassed at first about going on Facebook," the 45-year-old math tutor in Johns Creek said. "I wondered whether I was just trying to look younger than I should."
But her slightly older friend Sandy was on Facebook. And another neighbor who was heading to Iraq for his second tour of duty had joined so he could stay in touch with loved ones back home. It seemed like half the parents in Yarbrough's north Fulton County, Ga., subdivision were filling out Facebook profiles, much to the amusement and irritation of their children.
Like adults trying the Twist in an earlier time, growing numbers of grown-ups are discovering social networking sites. Facebook, founded 41/2 years ago in a Harvard dorm room, now counts 25-and-uppers as its hottest demographic group. MySpace, started in 2003 and long associated with gossiping adolescents, is expanding its older audience and attracting mature-minded advertisers such as Cartier. Almost half the unique visitors to both sites are 35 or older, according to comScore Media Metrix.
"Our culture is upside down," said Emory University English professor Mark Bauerlein, whose controversial book "The Dumbest Generation" criticized young people for spending so much time on Facebook and MySpace. "Instead of youth emulating elders, more and more it's the reverse: elders emulating youths."
The graying of social networking was confirmed this summer when Aaron Sorkin, creator of TV's "The West Wing," went on Facebook to announce that he was researching a screenplay about ... Facebook. His presumably younger assistant actually set up the page, Sorkin admitted, "because my grandmother has more Internet savvy than I do and she's been dead for 33 years."
Locally, a number of business and political figures have created Facebook pages, from IBM corporate citizenship executive Ann Cramer to Cobb County Commission Chairman Sam Olens. Even the city of Decatur set up a page, making it, at 185 years of age, perhaps the metro area's oldest Facebooker.
"It's really started to move into business circles in just the past two months," said Steve Nygren, 62, a founder of the Serenbe community in south Fulton County. "I see all these leaders on Facebook now, and I know most of them have children in their 20s."
Nygren joined in the spring to spread the word about a reunion of employees from his former business, the Peasant restaurant chain. His three daughters, all in their 20s, have cheered on their dad — but they clearly use social networking differently.
"They have hundreds and hundreds of friends," he said. "I'm up to 53. The only time I go on Facebook is when someone sends a request to befriend me."
That's friend, his daughters would tell him. Thanks to Facebook, it's a verb now.
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There are dozens of social media sites (as academics call them) that allow users to form online communities and swap information. They run from business networks such as LinkedIn to photo- and video-sharing sites such as Flickr and YouTube to microblogging utilities such as Twitter that let people post running accounts of their daily lives in text bursts that seem ridiculously mundane to outsiders (I'm putting the spaghetti in the water ...).
Of all the sites, Facebook is the one many adults find the easiest introduction to this strange new world of instant intimacy.
Eric Cain, 54, a music teacher in Kennesaw, joined last fall to meet potential companions after his divorce. That's why he filled out 47 lines in his personal profile, spelling out his religious beliefs, musical tastes and favorite films ("all Elvis movies").
"I put it all out there because I want to attract like-minded people," he said. "I'm looking for another Christian lady who likes to have fun."
Karin Koser, 49, a public relations professional in Decatur, joined six months ago to keep tabs on her teenage daughter (who tweaked her by refusing to accept her friending request). She soon discovered the PR possibilities of social media.
"I have one client, GreenBusiness Works Expo, that I put on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube," she said. "It's like sending a group e-mail."
Rosemarie Ariñez of Marietta, a 43-year-old Spanish teacher, switched from MySpace to Facebook recently because she found it easier to locate former co-workers in Atlanta and old classmates in her native Bolivia.
"Now I'm getting invited to be friends with people I don't know," she said. "It's silly."
Gerald M. Williams Jr. of Austell, a 41-year-old claims examiner, got on Facebook to stay connected with his younger brother in Athens.
Now he burns a couple of hours a day on the site, mostly communing with music and political groups.
"My wife is giving me a hard time about all the time I spend on Facebook," he said. "She's got stuff for me to do."
One group Williams joined for laughs has a name that nails the shifting generational dynamics of social networking. It's called "Adults are taking over Facebook! Send the kiddies off to MySpace!"
Many kids don't want them either place.
Becky Yarbrough, the Facebook newbie in Johns Creek, says her two teenage sons were peeved when she joined and made them accept her friending offers. She just wanted to keep an eye out for them, check their friends.
Soon she discovered that her youngest, 13-year-old Jack, had gone to a movie she didn't approve of — and that he was going out with someone.
"I would have told her if it was important," Jack said. "It kind of annoys me that's she's on Facebook talking to my friends. There are some places your parents shouldn't go."
His mom had to smile when she noticed that he and his older brother, Porter, had joined a group called "Parents getting Facebooks needs to stop!!!"
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Of all the elders on Facebook, one of the most surprising is former University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley. At 76, the old Dawg appears to have learned a few new tricks. His page lists his interests ("Civil War history"), his accomplishments ("led the Bulldogs to 20 bowl appearances") and a roster of almost 700 "friends."
There's only one problem: The page isn't Dooley's doing.
"I didn't even know I had a Facebook," he said. "Someone else did that."
(Full disclosure: You don't have to be who you say you are to create a social networking page. Yours truly helped set up a Twitter account for Fred C. Dobbs, the Humphrey Bogart character in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," complete with a still from the movie and a Twitterishly brief bio: "Greedy and dead.")
Hearing that her husband was supposedly on Facebook, Barbara Dooley laughed out loud. "The man doesn't know how to open a computer. He wouldn't know what Facebook was."
She does. People keep sending her e-mail invitations to be her online friend. She ignores them.
"I want my friends to talk with me in their own voices," she said. "I'm too busy for all this. By the time I get through with my e-mails and phone messages, I don't want any more messages. I want some peace. I think we're becoming overly attached to our electronics, don't you?"
Georgia fans know Mrs. Dooley as a gregarious personality who is something of a social networking site in herself. That sociable nature is one reason this adult refuses to join Facebook.
"I'm afraid," she admitted, "that I'll get addicted."
Jim Auchmutey writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: jauchmutey AT ajc.com