Are you a social networking mutant?

Computerworld - Have you ever tried to get an older person to use Facebook?

We bought my grandmother an iPad for her 98th birthday last week. Tellingly, she was able to use it very quickly and easily. She immediately started reading and sending e-mails, and playing some of the games we installed. She loves the iPad. Facebook? Not so much.

The Facebook account we set up for her was actively ignored. She hates Facebook. How can that be? Facebook is easy enough to use, and the payoff is enormous -- keeping in touch with her extensive network of family and friends.

I've noticed the same phenomenon with my dad. He's out of the loop with family news. When he asks me what's going on with the family, I have to practically copy and paste from Facebook. It's all there. Why won't he just look? My dad can do all kinds of things that seem impossible to me. He can rebuild a car engine. He can build an entire house singlehandedly. But he can't use Facebook.

My wife has a friend in her 80s. She's super smart and in many ways lives like a young person. She uses e-mail and has no trouble with other facets of modern life. But Facebook? She won't do it. My wife and I gently urged her to get into Facebook and trotted out all the benefits. She could see photos and get the news on her grandchildren, and generally stay in better touch with loved ones. Finally, she came out with it: "I understand that's it's great, but I just can't and won't do Facebook."

Here's the interesting bit. Some older people respond to Facebook in exactly the same way that younger people respond to not using Facebook.

Plunk a high school student in a classroom with no phones, no electronics and no interaction, and tell them to simply pay attention to the teacher talking. Like older people on Facebook, they squirm, feel disoriented and can't focus.

What's going on here? What is it about Facebook that makes it such an effective generational marker?

It's all about brain wiring

Have you ever seen the Four Eyes Illusion? It's a picture of a young woman digitally altered with an extra pair of eyes and an extra mouth. The image is shockingly uncomfortable to look at. The picture makes some people dizzy, or even nauseated. Why is that?

The reason is that our brains are hardwired to recognize the human face. Once we burn into our brains that faces have two eyes and one mouth, we cannot accept one with four eyes and two mouths. We hate looking at it. We feel anxious. It challenges the foundations of our mental firmware.