The Reg Index
2007-10-24 04:31PM PDT/Home
R. Tyler Ballance quoted a Facebook statistic, that over 50% of their members are not in college in his Unethical Blogger post, My New Favorite Chuckle. To find out where the other, more than 50% were, I decided to create a completely unscientific sample containing exactly one high school, mine, lovingly referred to as "The Reg" (pronounced like Reej, as in short for Regional). And plotted out Facebook memberships by year starting with 1985, the year I graduated.
Once I pulled the numbers, I was surprised to see that the number of Facebook members currently in high school (2008-2011) outnumber those in college (2004-2007), 40% to 35%. The remaining 25% is spread over 1985-2004. So while it's true that over 50% are not in college, fully 75% of my one sample are in high school + college.
Update: I ran my wife's school through as well, Palo Alto's Gunn High School, with the same basic results. Though the Silicon Valley location seems to have fattened the tail a bit.