Facebook for Fossils or How the Middle Aged Embrace Outdated Technology

So I hear that Facebook is passé.  I’ve read in various places that most new users are you know, my age, and that it’s gotten more common to share pictures of your grandkids than uploads of your Spring Break antics.

And then it was confirmed by Lex, my 13-year-old daughter, who informed me that “everyone” is getting off Facebook to get away from their parents.

(Following her into the next internet foray to keep an eye on things is a separate post, and frankly, a parenting nightmare for which my own adolescence failed to prepare me.)

I’m sure the hipsters that created the algorithm (yeah, I saw the movie) are horrified at what their project has become.  I personally get a little creeped out when a sidebar ad for baby clothes comes up after I’ve been looking at my niece’s online baby registry, but I can swat that away pretty easily.  In defense of my middle-aged condition, my a-bit-higher-aged mother won’t even buy from Amazon because “they don’t need that kind of information about me”.  (I’m not sure who “they” are.)

Setting all  that aside for a moment, let me just say–whether it’s cool or not, tracking my internet habits or not—-I LOVE Facebook.

I’m not obsessed with it, I don’t scan my newsfeed 14 times/day, I don’t “check in” every time I grab a coffee at Starbucks and I don’t update my status with my current decision to eat a bagel.

What does that leave?

I smile, I remember, I brag about my kids, I pray for the woman I know who’s updating statuses with her mom’s health deterioration and eventual death, I rejoice that the scary car accident status was updated with an “all clear”,  I am inspired by my stepdaughter’s “map my run” statuses and my nieces’ half-marathon finish.

I got back in touch with dear friends: Jennifer, Kathy, Patty.

Yearly hit or miss Christmas cards did a lousy job helping me sort out who was where and whose kids were doing what.  Because of Facebook, I know Jennifer’s son joined the Marine Corps and that we coincidentally gave our daughters the same first name, even though we shorten them differently.  I got to “like” the status that informed me that Kathy’s son won his second-grade essay contest, and with tears in my eyes, I admired a photo of her deployed husband’s latest offering to his daughter.  I know that Patty is some super scary-successful writer, and was thus a little less surprised when I saw her name on a book I was skimming at Barnes & Noble.

Facebook uses the term “friend” pretty loosely.  I’m not sure how I would categorize these women’s relationship in the world to me.  They were part of my daily life over 20 years ago.  We helped each other through what has remained one of the most difficult times in my life, but has probably faded into insignificance in their more courage-requiring ones. Are they my “friends” now?  Not really.  But every time I see an update or look at the pictures they post, I remember who I was then and the things I admired about them.  I pause and smile at the women we’ve all turned out to be.

I had a reunion with my college roommate.

Having seen enough pictures of her and her husband, whose wedding I stood up in almost 25 years ago, I knew they hadn’t changed all THAT much, and I would recognize them.  Still, when readying myself in the hotel room of their home city where my family and I were now tourists, I agonized over what to wear and whether or not she would have gotten more fancy since the year we spent in our roach-infested college apartment. I wondered what she remembered about ME, and thought about texting her a quick “so we don’t HAVE to mention the night the firemen were called to our building in front of my daughter, right?”, and “I’m not sure I ever really apologized for getting so drunk at your reception.”

Maybe it’s because of Facebook that our immediate hug and joyous greeting were so genuine.  Our lives had been at least a little bridged by knowledge of our children’s successes and the  occasional “Likes” we clicked on each other’s whimsical musings.  In person, I realized I miss her still, and that “Friend” has more than one definition.

I have guilt-free “friend”ships with three ex-boyfriends, all of whom seem happily married.

I don’t post often, but every now and then, I get a little buzz from the number of “Likes” I can get on a family picture or a particularly witty observation.

Oh, yeah, and I play Candy Crush.

So Lex and all the other cool folk can Tweet, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumble, whatever.

I’m pretty happy on Facebook.  I just hope all the other outdated fogeys stay on there with me.