PIERRE — Scott Louis had never used the social networking site Facebook until around two years ago, when he read a news story describing the Web site as a new sensation.

Unimpressed by his time on rival social network MySpace, Louis gave Facebook a try.

“I got on there and was just amazed at how many people weren’t on MySpace but were on Facebook — older people that I knew,” said Louis, 33. “It’s been very, very cool to hook up with old schoolmates, people I’ve gone to camp with, people I work with.”

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Louis’ story isn’t unique. In fact, as a South Dakotan, he is particularly likely to be a Facebook user, according to one recent study.

Social media consultant Muhammad Saleem found South Dakota to have more Facebook users per capita than any other state in the country. Between 30 and 40 percent of South Dakotans have an account on the popular social networking site.

“You would normally expect the East Coast and the West Coast to be early adopters and heavy users (of technology),” Saleem said. “There are states like South Dakota, and others in the Midwest and South, where would wouldn’t expect to find heavy usage. But we found quite a bit of heavy usage.”

Some other attempts to measure Facebook traffic have found South Dakota’s Facebook presence is strong, but outpaced by a number of other states.

Facebook began as a Web site for college students, but its days as a site dominated by the young are over. The vast majority of Facebook users are aged 26 to 54.

“The fastest-growing demographic on Facebook is older generations,” said Scott Meyer, co-founder and chief outreach officer at 9 Clouds, Inc., a Sioux Falls-based social marketing firm. “They can understand it a lot easier than they can other networks.”

Some South Dakotan Facebook users said they aren’t surprised by the site’s success here.

“We’re so isolated out here,” said Trista Olsen, 23, a rancher from Wood. “(Facebook) lets people communicate and see what’s going on outside of the rural community.”

Olsen said she uses Facebook to stay close to the rest of her family, who live in Minnesota.

Originally from Eagle Butte, Louis said Facebook has helped him stay in touch with friends and family there and get updates during this winter’s ice storm.

“People would update their Facebook (page) saying, ‘If anybody’s going to Pierre, be careful, the roads are really bad,’” he said. “I think it’s very, very helpful for everybody.”

Experts expect Facebook to continue to attract new users.

“Facebook is more and more acting like a Web within the Web,” Saleem said. “Experiences that people were having fragmented all over the place — ‘I’m going to get my news from here and here and my photos from there’ — people are getting all that from Facebook.”

“I only think it’s going to grow over time,” Meyer said. “A lot of people said they would never use Facebook, and now they are. A lot of people said they would never carry a phone around with them and be in touch all the time, and now almost everyone does.”