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Yearbooks still trump Facebook
May 31, 2009 (Wyoming Tribune-Eagle - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Despite Web sites like Facebook and MySpace, local students still seem eager for traditional paper-and-ink yearbooks. A book can provide memories for decades, some say, while Web site photos can disappear with the touch of a button. Teachers say their students haven't gone all-digital yet.
CHEYENNE -- Move over Facebook, it's yearbook time.
Even with the availability of networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, which are a bit like online yearbooks, it seems many teens are just as likely to want the old-fashioned paper variety.
"We sold more this year than last year," Suzy Quinn, the yearbook adviser for Cheyenne's East High, said.
Facebook and MySpace often are seen as temporary, she added. "(But) this book that they can hold is going to last forever," she said.
She has been the yearbook adviser for six years and hasn't seen the yearbook phenomenon fade in the slightest. The students still love to run around and get them signed by friends and teachers, she added.
"Over the years, I haven't seen that change at all."
But East High junior Tarryn Demers didn't buy one this year.
"I don't really want one until my senior year," she said.
All those memories are expensive. This year's book cost $65.
And keeping tabs on classmates is easy with Facebook, she said.
"You can keep in touch with people that way and see how everybody's doing," Demers said.
As for whether a Web site will last as long as a dusty old yearbook, Demers said she has adult family members who use Facebook, so she figures it'll be around long enough to keep in touch with her classmates years from now.
But Jeslyn Mauriello, a junior and a member of the yearbook staff, disagrees.
"You keep (a yearbook) forever," she said. "You can delete your (online) profile."
Tenetta Anderson, the yearbook adviser for Pine Bluffs Junior-Senior High, said yearbooks are as popular as ever there.
About 100 yearbooks were sold this year, which is about the same number as usual, Anderson said.
And the students are just as eager about yearbooks as ever.
Some college yearbooks, however, have gone the way of the encyclopedia post-Wikipedia.
The University of Wyoming yearbook ceased publication about nine years ago, said Jessica Lowell, a spokeswoman with the college.
The reason for ending publication isn't certain, but Lowell did not attribute it to the digital age. It appears the UW yearbook went extinct well before sites like Facebook invaded.
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http://www.wyomingnews.com/. Copyright (c) 2009, Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Cheyenne
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