My kids are too young to be on Facebook, but I'm not. According to most people on Facebook, I'm probably too old to be there, but oh well. I like new technology and my life isn't scandalous enough to make my Facebook page that interesting, so I think it's all good.
If you aren't on Facebook (yet) or are wondering what it's all about, you aren't alone.
Six months ago just about all of my Facebook friends (people who willingly admit that they know me and don't mind my face showing up in their list of friends) were either a) former co-workers of mine who are all about 15 years younger than me; or b) my friends' college-age kids who are all about 20 years younger than me; or c) nieces and nephews who are all about 25 years younger than me.
Today, I'm proud to say that at least one-quarter of my Facebook friends are my age or older, and more seem to be signing on every day. I'm a little relieved to have more people my age join me because I was slightly concerned that, based on my friend list alone, I might appear to be the type still living at home with my parents and trying desperately to hang with the cool kids -- and not realizing that the cool kids don't really want to hang with someone their mom's age. Ick.
One of the interesting sides of this online social networking revolution is what it is doing to live conversation. For example, if you have a college student in your life, you know that face-to-face communication isn't the first choice when dorm roommates are getting to know each other.
Nope, they find out each other's names, pull up each other's pages on Facebook or MySpace and start filling in the blanks on who this person is before they've ever even spoken or -- God forbid! -- seen each other.
Last fall I read this great New Yorker article about a new class being offered for incoming freshmen at New York University. The class was called "Facebook in the Flesh," and it was all about teaching the new students how to actually talk to each other, face to face.
“Meeting new people face-to-face can be . . . intimidating,” a brochure
for the class said. “This fun, interactive workshop will get everyone talking as we
build social networks in person.”
Members of the class were challenged to pair off and have a six-minute real-life conversation in which they learned about each other. They were given a worksheet with pointers such as "Ask questions" and "Try to discover commonalities and/or connections with the other person."
It's amazing to me that the technology could ever go so far in one direction that students of that age would ever need to be taught how to just hang out and get to know each other. I thought that was the whole point of college?
So for those of us (ahem) "older" people on Facebook, I guess this could serve as a bit of a wake-up call. Facebook is fun, but let's not get to the point where we need a class to help us relearn how to actually talk to each other. And if you agree with this, then please find me on Facebook and let's be friends.
