Facebook is parents' own back yard

The Facebook top trending words on US status updates for 2009 include swine flu, celebrity death, God and Lady Gaga. So far, so predictable. But in at No 13 is yard. Yes, "yard" as in backyard, garden, patio, patch, playground, terrace. The Facebook crew claim to have no idea how it came there. Their data team used a complicated data-mining method, analysing important bursts in activity to find this trend that nobody would have recognised. Intriguing. Or not, as according to them it isn't mentioned very often, but shows a huge increase when 2009 is compared with 2008. In fact, they chose it as a trending word to make clear that Facebook is not just for students any more but for their less cool parents, who are logging on to talk about their yard. Because this is what mums and dads do? Maybe the sad fact of the matter is that Facebook's 350 million hipsters are growing up and turning into their parents.