Technology / Facebook Kids Curse, Oldsters Ramble: Facebook Study Analysts probe data for behavioral trends By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff Posted Dec 28, 2010 10:13 AM CST Copied Facebook.com's mastermind, Mark Zuckerberg smiles at his office in Palo Alto, Calif., Monday, Feb. 5, 2007. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) You can learn a lot when you’re listening to 550 million people. Using linguistic software, Facebook analysts investigated what people were saying in status updates, and came up with a number of interesting trends, Business Insider reports: The oldsters chatter quite a bit: Status update length was the best way to predict age. Older people also tend to talk more about religion and family. The young, meanwhile, leave out articles and prepositions, tend to curse more, and use the word “I” frequently. Those who use “you” a lot tend to have more friends. People have positive outlooks in the morning, the time of more upbeat statuses. After 10pm, there’s a negativity surge. Negative status updates garner more comments than positive ones. Friends use similar vocabularies, especially when discussing family and religion or using swear words. (More Facebook stories.) Report an error