Minnie Explains it All

I just need to say, I am not down with the old folks joining facebook and trying to befriend me.

It started with a mother of someone I went to high school with. She comments on my status updates and photos now. And I don't even know her! Next came an invite from my step aunt, and I held off adding her for about a week- a week is all you can really get away with when you are updating everything else, because it's obvious you are ignoring the invite if you wait any longer (can't claim you don't know how to use fb and just overlooked it if you're uploading photos and commenting on friend's status updates). So whatever, I added her because I didn't want to be rude, plus, I never see her so what does it matter? Well, things reached a new level of weird when I got a friend request from my step grandma today (mother of said step aunt). This woman is 75 years old and facebooking! Okay, sounds kinda cute right? WRONG. This woman is uber-religious, an ordained minister who sends me tracts on my birthday with little notes that say, "The Lord put this on my heart for you." The tract says something about how I am going to hell because I had sex before marriage.

How am I supposed to live a normal online life (haha) when I have her looking over my shoulder? Not that I care- I mean, I am who I am and believe what I believe and am perfectly content, but still..I don't want to feel like I am censoring myself just so I don't offend anyone. Don't need to be getting more than just the occasional one of those pamphlet things in my birthday card.

I think this is an issue that will only become more urgent, as more old people figure out how technology works. It's up to us to specifically NOT help them sign up for accounts to these various social networking sites. Don't be an enabler. Do you really want your mom knowing that you're stumbling, slurring, drunk dialing/texting/tweeting wasted at 2am Saturday night? No, those updates are for friends only.