On Facebook, we post pictures of parties and bars, we leave awkward comments to our friends, and we post relatable Texts From Last Night on their walls. Our statuses keep people updated with what is going on in our lives, if all of the comments and pictures don’t fully do the trick.
When Facebook first started, it was made for college students and college students only. Now, everyone and anyone can have a Facebook account. Personally, I’m Facebook friends with both of my parents, all of my siblings, and other relatives besides cousins in the college-age range, but I know I’m not in the majority of this statistic.
Should you be friends with your family, and other adults on Facebook?
As Facebook begun to increase in popularity, professors and college administrators started preaching to students about the importance of keeping their Facebook pages clean. “Don’t do anything online you wouldn’t want a potential employer to see, because they will check up on you and find it.” We’ve all heard that one about 700 times.
And so we may have started to take a little caution in what we post, but hardly enough to say we’ve made drastic changes to the way we use the networking website. You study hard and get a 98 on an exam but that’s not visible on Facebook. Yet pictures from a 21st birthday party you went to on Monday night are.
So the question becomes: do you care who sees your page? Many people will say it doesn’t really matter – until they get a friend request from a relative. Then the questions become: should adults be able to use Facebook, and should you be allowed to deny their friend requests?
As you get older and are more considered adults, you begin communicating with older relatives in a different way, and then the fuzzy line that already separated close family members from friends almost becomes non-existent.
But allowing your parents and other relatives into your Facebook world, allowing them to see the way you communicate with your friends, what your favorite thing to order at a bar is, and pictures of you kissing your boyfriend in public…that’s a line a lot of college kids are having a hard time crossing.
It’s an arguable topic, because Facebook is a great communication tool, but only when used properly. We all know we do spend more time keeping up with certain people on Facebook than with others, and part of that comes from what is going on on our pages.
If you’re the kind of person who does not update their Facebook page often, or doesn’t allow ‘friends’ (meaning family and friends) to see pictures or videos of you, then people really won’t spend time on your page. But if you’re that girl who updates her status every time someone looks at you or you post pictures from your phone every seven minutes, then you know you will be crept on by others.
When I started getting friend requests from family members, I will be honest (and I apologize) – I was a little torn at first. Facebook does not send out ‘follower requests’ like Twitter does, they send out ‘friend requests.’ The word choice really does make a difference, in my mind.
Then I thought: “Okay. If I want to be ‘friends’ with my family online – which I did – but I didn’t want younger relatives or older ones to see anything awkward, it would be a good time to business-ify my page.”
This is my Facebook advice if you happen to be one of those people with pending requests from family: I went through and I started to think about what my professors drilled into our heads, and I made my page more appropriate for potential employers to see. Then I decided if my Facebook was safe for employers, it was safe for family, too.
