-
sponsorship
Hey, crankypants—or is the right term crankybra? Yes, I'm talking to you, Hanna Rosin. Your generation may not have "found an easy way into Facebook," but my peeps—as amazing as it may seem with my youthful visage and my love of TV shows featuring high school kids, I'm older than you are—are all over it.
You see, my peeps aren't my birth cohort or any other demographic slice; they're my partners in procrastination and time-wasting. Facebook attracts people who watch a lot of television, have a lot of opinions about pop culture, and don't have very well-developed impulse control (check out some of my photos, Sam!). My peeps. Your peeps are way too busy writing brilliant books and numerous genius magazine pieces.
-
sponsorship
Samantha, I understand your disappointment that Facebook isn't the cozy place it used to be, but can I chime in on behalf of the old folks? While it might be desirable to make your profile more "professional" if you're going to be using it for work, please don't think that we're all a bunch of humorless, judgmental old biddies. I, for one, refuse to detag the photo that a friend recently posted of me from college in which another friend and I are posing in the men's room of our co-ed dorm. It brings back too many funny memories. (Just like every generation thinks it invented sex, I suppose every generation thinks it's the first to get away with underage drinking and similar craziness. I assure you, there's probably little your generation can do to shock us.)
And I trust as you get older that you will see the other benefits of Facebook. I don't feel like I'm that old, but I've been out of school long enough to have had a half-dozen jobs in three states. I've always left behind people I adored but didn't manage to stay in touch with, which happens when you get married and start popping out kids. (Let me warn you, kids are a time-suck!) Thanks to Facebook, in the past few months I've found childhood friends, college friends, old co-workers. Granted, I don't spend hours obsessively e-mailing my long-lost pals, like some of Hanna's friends do, but it's great for catching up after years of silence and then occasionally responding to comments or posting. Back in January, I survived Ohio State's loss in the Fiesta Bowl by trading wall comments with a friend from first grade. When two beloved teachers from my high school passed away a couple months apart this winter, not only did I learn about their untimely deaths via Facebook, but I was able to come together with former classmates as we shared favorite stories about them.
Facebook, I guess, is like every other aspect of growing up. It might not be as carefree and fun as it used to be, but it offers its own rewards.
-
sponsorship
Sam, your post about how adults have ruined Facebook got me pondering a brain teaser: What happens when we, our generation of twentysomething, Original Gangsta Facebook users, becomes—gasp!—grown-ups? (And, if we're not now ... when? Though I wish it weren't so, we definitely qualify as "adults" to a decent number of users already.) What happens when we're the boss ladies? Will people still feel compelled to edit their drunken photos for our benefit? Or will it just be understood that we've got them, too, and so long as you're not breaking the law in any of them, it's all good? And is that even something we would want our one-day inferiors to see, with a click of a button, us authority figures flush-faced, droopy-eyed, and whooping it up while drinking everclear and punch out of red plastic cups? Probably not. So, while it might hurt a little now, I think all these adults on Facebook are just doing what adults are supposed to do and pushing us "youngsters" to grow up. Or, at least to behave like grown-ups, which often comes before feeling like one but is a necessary part of the process. This whole maturing thing can be a drag, but that doesn't mean it doesn't need doing.
-
sponsorship
Sam, you're grieving that adults have crashed Facebook? Get over it. This will happen, in various ways, to everything in your life. It's like the restaurant in that Yogi Berra line: "Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded." What is exclusive becomes inclusive; in the process, it is irretrievably changed.
But so are you-changed, and changing. Nostalgia for the early Facebook years is like nostalgia for flower power and anti-war rallies. Don't get too attached to your generational pleasures lest you turn into one of those old folks who can't stop griping about how young people these days don't but should appreciate, oh, waltzing or the Rolling Stones. The world around you-political, social, cultural-is constantly changing in ways that will seem utterly incredible in about 15 more years: You'll look up and say, "Wait a minute, when did everyone start believing XYZ, which was so unthinkable when I was young? I thought everyone was against war/homosexuality/virginity/drugs/obscenity on the radio/regulation/deregulation, so how did policies get changed in this utterly weird direction? Where did these crazies come from, and how exactly did they start running the world? I want my intimate little Facebook back!"
Won't happen. Might as well start getting used to it now.
-
sponsorship
Sam, you hit us where it hurts. It's true, my generation hasn't found an easy way into Facebook. I have friends who use it obsessively, like teenagers, and I'm sort of embarrassed for them. I have others who use it like Linked In, to make professional contacts. And others who are so ambivalent that in all their photos they hide behind their kids. Most, like me, just start a page and then neglect it. But I guarantee you, once you're in my shoes and actually start the breast-feeding phase of life (see cranky breast-feeding me in my Atlantic story), as opposed to just dreaming about it (see giddy, insouciant Sam on breast-feeding here), you'll neglect/misuse Facebook too.
-
sponsorship
I second Jess' call for you to become fans of Double X on Facebook. But as happy as I'll be to share that virtual connection with you, I'm not happy this is what Facebook has become. I joined Facebook in the golden years, back when the bulk of its users were friends of friends of Mark Zuckerberg. Younger than Friendster and more exclusive than MySpace, Facebook let us figure out college life as a group. We shared snippets of this strange new experience with the kids we met in class that day and kept tabs on our scattered high-school friends. Facebook let us grow up and apart within view of each other. And then, suddenly, also within view of the grown-ups. And that's when the fun ended.
In preparation for the launch of the Double X page, I started off on a mission to "clean up" my FB profile. I'm friends with my bosses now, after all, so it's time to get profesh. But the same drunken pictures that I know I should untag are also the ones I most love revisiting—driven by that intense nostalgia that causes me to reread my humiliating middle-school diaries every time I visit my parents' apartment. Ever since adults crashed the party, though, Facebook profiles are more like cover letters than diaries. So I embark on my Facebook makeover grudgingly, because I'm way more embarrassed to reveal myself as self-promotional than drunk.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?