Jennifer Triplett writes this week's It Matters to Me column.

LITTLE ROCK — Well, I finally jumped on the Facebook bandwagon.

A couple of co-workers were encouraging me to start a profile a couple of weeks ago and I finally decided to cave and see what all the hype was about. Now, don't get me wrong, I had heard of Facebook and had an inkling about what you do there, but I never really had any desire to join. I guess I'm old-school: I prefer interacting with real, live people who are either in the room or on the other end of the phone. I don't even text, which I'm pretty sure adds at least 10 years to my actual age.

So I created my profile and already I was hit with conundrums. Just how much information did I want to put out there? And who did I want to be able to see it? I put in some limited information and decided to set it to where only my friends could see it. That opened up a new can of worms: Now I had to make some friends.

In searching for some of real-world friends, I discovered that several of them seem to be hold-outs like me. I found some people I'm actually friends with, some co-workers and some acquaintances. Then I had to ask them to be my friends. I'm sorry, but this was starting to feel very third grade-ish. It's really kind of weird waiting around for somebody to basically say "Yes, I'll be your friend." I also have trouble with deciding who to ask. High school classmates, co-workers and parents from my children's school make up a pretty disparate group. Do I really want all those people looking at my profile?

Through my little experiment with wading into the social networking scene, I've discovered a new hobby: snooping. Lots of people leave their profiles open to anyone and I have to admit I have spent way too much time looking up people I used to know. These are the folks that I have no intention of friending but I'm just curious to see what they're up to. I must admit, there are a few things I wish I hadn't seen.

Perhaps the most positive thing to come out of all this is reconnecting with someone I've known since I was 12. We haven't seen each other in forever but now we're talking again and planning to get together over spring break.

One of the funniest things happened when I edited my profile to say I was married (I talked my husband into making himself a Facebook page, too.) I had to wait for him to confirm our relationship and then my wall said "Jennifer Triplett and David Triplett are now married." Like after 10 years it wasn't really official until Facebook said so.

I'm still trying figure the whole thing out. There are so many groups and causes and games and who knows what else. I've learned a few things by trial and error and I've managed not to embarrass myself, yet. It's a bit disconcerting to me, learning new technology. I was an early adopter of the Internet (before there were Web sites with all those pretty graphics, mind you) and my first cell phone probably gave me a brain tumor it was so big. However, I put off the whole Web 2.0 scene for so long, I feel kind of like an old fogey trying to cut in on what all the cool kids are doing. But since all the cool kids are doing it, I guess I'll keep muddling my way through.