Facebook users share what’s on their mind: the top trends for 2009

The top US Facebook status update trends of 2009 include application names, FML ("F*** My Life"), swine flu and celebrity deaths.

References to family members, movies, sports, health care, Twitter, Lady Gaga and religion also ranked among the most commonly seen trends in Facebook status updates in 2009.

On December 21 Facebook introduced "Facebook Memology," their study of how memes are spread through Facebook's community of social networkers. Facebook Memology ranks the most commonly used phrases or words in people's status updates in 2009 and compares them to the trends seen in 2008.

"To generate the list, we started by looking at how many times each phrase with length from one-to-four words occurred in U.S. Facebook status updates, then we computed the rate at which each phrase occurred in 2009 compared to 2008," wrote Lars Backstrom, a data scientist at Facebook, on December 21 on the official Facebook blog.

Top Status Trends of 2009:
1. Facebook Applications
Specific words: Farmville, Farm Town, Social Living
2. FML
Specific word: FML
3. Swine Flu
Specific words: Flu, Swine Flu, H1N1
4. Celebrity Deaths
Specific words: Michael Jackson, Patrick Swayze, Billy Mays
5. Family
Specific words: Family, Mom, Dad, Son, Daughter, Kids
6. Movies
Specific words: New Moon, Transformers, Star Trek, The Hangover, Paranormal Activity and Harry Potter
7. Sports
Specific words: Steelers, Yankees
8. Health Care
Specific words: Health Care, No one should have to...
9. FB
Specific words: FB, FB Friends, News Feed
10. Twitter
Specific words: Twitter, RT
11. Years
Specific words: 2008, 2009, 2010
12. Lady Gaga
Specific words: Gaga, Poker Face
13. Yard
Specific word: Yard
14. Religion
Specific words: Easter, Lord, God
15. I
Specific words: I, is

For a detailed explanation of each of the terms head to: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=215076352130