Tuesday, August 25th, 2009...3:55 pm
#143: Don’t Facebook Old
Over on More.com, my post today is about How Not To Act Old on Facebook, offering some tips not in the book, which offers lots of Facebooking advice that’s not on this blog.
Why haven’t I blogged here about Facebook before now? For one, I needed to save lots of new and exciting stuff exclusively for the book.
Plus the truth is, the flood of people our age joining Facebook (women over 55 are the fastest-growing demographic) is extremely recent even as measured in blog time. Way back in the summer of ’08, when I started this site, nobody I knew was an active Facebooker. As recently as the fall of ’08, the brilliant writer and photographer Fran Liscio suggested I should subtitle the HNTAO book, I Hope They Have Facebook in Hell.
And then in early ’09, suddenly you and me and everyone we know were friending each other and updating our status (stati? statuses?) and posting profile pictures that featured not us but our kids or our dogs or our high school yearbook portraits or just that sad blank silhouette, because we still don’t quite have that Upload A Photo thing down.
Tip #1 for Not Acting Old on Facebook: Don’t Do That.
Once we work out the technological glitches, most of us learn very quickly to love Facebook. In fact, Time Magazine says that Facebook is even more perfect for the old than the young.
Bonus: Once you’re on Facebook, you can join the How Not To Act Old Facebook group and also send all your friends HNTAO Facebook gifts, like Grinding Lessons and Pet Rats.
The image below is by Stephen Wildish. It must have seemed a lot more outrageous when it was done, in 2007, than it does now.
It looks like we’re too late to read the magazine article, so we’ll have to check out your book to see if there is any advice to pass on to our seniors about “how not to act old on Facebook”! (sometimes they just can’t help it!)
We have been filming a number of senior citizens entering the online world for the first time, guided by students. Some have been intimidated by Facebook, and others have spent hours commenting on photo albums (with a few “pokes” here and there)
We’re still filming the documentary, but we recently posted our first promo video with more to follow if you want to check it out!