My friend’s cousin (we’ll call him P., because that’s his initial) added me on Facebook. I know P from a camping trip a few months back.
After confirming P’s add, I took a look at his Facebook wall and recent actvitity. He’s connected to other members of the extended family: my friend, my friend’s little sister, cousins and aunts and uncles from all around the family. There’s a running conversation on his wall with a cousin of the same age from a different side of the family1. P’s status is “looking forward to tomorrow to find out if we are going to have a boy or a girl. :)”. I fully expect he’ll post the news, and potentially an ultrasound picture.
Families usually keep in touch like this with periodic phone calls. I suppose the white-collar 20-35 demographic uses email too, since we’re so used to it in school and business. But I wonder if this is an isolated case of a family using Facebook, or the first I’m seeing of a larger progression. Rushi has pointed out that he has seen high school friends’ parents online, connecting with their high school friends.
Addendum 22 Oct: This is Why You Don’t Friend Your Boss on Facebook. That kinda changes the workplace dynamic, I suppose.
- Her husband is on Facebook too. ↩
My family uses Facebook kinda like this, well extended family. They get ahold of me for family gatherings and stuff using it occasionally. That and txting, my whole freaking extended family txts. My uncles txt more than I do even…
While my parents have not progressed to having a facebook account (thank god, and I hope they never will), a few members of my extended family (mostly those that work with young’uns like us) have facebooks. It gets slightly awkward. I worry a little more what I’m actually putting up as my status. I mean, it’s mostly my father’s side (the side that doesn’t have a grapevine of communication that relays information in about a week to all members of the family) but it’s still so weird! …which is yet another reason why I limit what gets published in the newsfeed. And hooray for untagging things. >_>; I mean, I almost have to censor it (essentially) as much as I would if I were concerned about companies looking at my facebook for job apps.
My parents text though. It’s also kinda weird. Also seeing my mom on gtalk is very weird. But not as weird as seeing my dad text with chat speak. *shudder* It makes me want to cry a little inside every time he does that.