Parents on Facebook: social networking between generations
Facebook is for friends... or so it used to be. The early
adopters of this service proved that it is a great virtual medium for
self expression, and the rest of the population is now jumping on the
bandwagon. It used to be, at least for me, a place for my drunken
freshman self to post shady-wasted photos of my friends and organize
events. Way easier than having to call 50 some odd people to give
them an invite. Then Junior year came around, and it dawned on me how
much me how much my profile had changed over 2.5 years. It had
matured and evolved, just as I had grown into a somewhat more
responsible being. That brought up a thought in my mind... perhaps
Facebook will survive a generational jump?
It was during that Junior year that my techno-trend impaired
mother asked if there was any way for her to better share pictures
with me. I proceeded to explain social networking, and the easy of
the Facebook photo applet. Before that, she used to spam me with
hundreds of attached photos to my email. To cease feeling bad about
keeping my own mother on my spam list, I helped her set up an
account. Sure enough, I had a new friend request pending a few days
later. Friend accepted... I figured I'm a good enough kid so I have
nothing to hide, right?
About a week later, I got a phone call from her. "That table
in the background of one of your party pictures sure looks
familiar..." She apparently browsed through my photo archives
and found the album containing pictures of a party I threw in her
house when my parents were on vacation. The picture was of my friend
flashing his beer gut and man boobs, trying to distract the
competition from winning at beer-pong on my mom's solid oak
full-length dining table. Oops. Surprisingly enough, she started
laughing on the phone... "I had no idea that ever happened, I'm
impressed that you pulled it off". I was like, what?? I never
thought of my parents as ever being able to switch off their
parenting mode and appreciate some drunken shenanigans.
This goes to show that Facebook is becoming far more than just a
college-aged demographic novelty. It's actually bringing aspects of
different generations closer together, kind of like a Wii. I'm
curious in 40 years what that generation will think of their elders
after seeing scandalous photos of them doing keg stands, and peeing
on dumpsters next to a police station (no comment). Maybe we will be
the first 'cool' old people generation with all our youthful
contributions all over the Internet.