A few months back I had a friend request from my mother... I denied within seconds. After discussing it with her and telling her there was no way it would happen she said "I didn't even know I sent the request, it brought up people I might know from my email addresses and the next thing I know it says it's send a request to everyone." Fine. I understand the confusion of Facebook off the bat, hell I was completely clueless when I first signed up as I was an avid Myspacer. Now Facebook is all the rage and I much prefer it to Myspace, even though I still dislike 'the new Facebook'... I digress.
So she didn't mean to send the request knowing full well I wouldn't accept - wonderful, no harm, no foul. The next day I see a friend request from my aunt... Crap. I talk to my cousin and we panic together about our mom's being on Facebook and what the hell should we do?! I leave the request open for my aunt so I can ponder.
I spent quite some time on Facebook learning about Friend Lists and how I could make them work to my advantage in this situation. Turns out you can really get specific and make everything how you want it for specific people. Awesome! I make some changes (and block a bunch of my current 'friends' from seeing shit they have no business seeing) and then I accept my aunts request. Done.
Now... I'm seeing everyone's mothers on Facebook, and some dad's too! I guess the saying everyone and their mom is fitting for who is using Facebook these days. I know specifically my mom and aunt are not signing up to 'check up' on me, but it's still strange. I'm not one to post picture of myself doing something illegal or stupid, but it's still strange. My life is not super private, but it's still strange. As you may know from reading my blog or by knowing me personally... my mom is one person I do not like in my business.
Anyhow - my mom 'accidentally' sent me another friend request the other week... only this time I was prepared for it. I added her to a list and we're all good!
So...Thoughts For Thursday for today is: Have your parents joined; either one or both? Did you accept and if so, did you add them to a friend list and restrict what they can see? If you denied, why did you? Did you discuss it with them? I'd love to hear any stories you have and get your thoughts on it if you haven't run into the situation yet.
Now it's your turn... GO!
6 comments:
I have bumped into this same damn dilemma just this week. There's a woman at work....nobody likes her, myself included. She's just ANNOYING. Well, she's on Facebook and has found several co-workers and sent friend requests to them. Guess who she found next. Yep...that would be me.
Here's the thing. They don't like her, and don't want to talk to her on Facebook, but "it's mean to ignore her like that". OK, it might be mean, but it's MY personal life, and I won't be bullied into being friends with someone I don't like either.
Fast forward a couple days...and one of my co-workers informs me that Miss Annoying has pictures of EVERYONE (including Troopers in uniform with their names and unit numbers) on her Facebook, including me. Before I had a chance to demand she remove the unauthorized picture of me, the boss got wind of it and sent her an email telling her she was to take down EVERY picture of anyone in uniform that she didn't have written consent to use.
Which brings me back to my point. I like my private life to stay private, and I pick and choose who I socialize with, who I get close to, who I hang around with etc. Why would I choose to act differently on Facebook just so that someone doesn't think I'm "mean"?
UGH...sorry...I missed that word "parents" in the question. OK...my mom has vowed to never get on Facebook, so I'm safe. But no, she would not be approved anyway. She's too critical of EVERYTHING I do and say because I'm not my sister.
My parents aren't on it, so it's not an issue for me personally, but I think it's an interesting topic. I'm trying to picture myself in 15 years and thinking that my daughter will be into whatever social networking trend is huge at the time and I wonder if she'd let me be her friend, or whatever the term will be. As a parent, I hope she would, but thinking back to my teenage days, I'm thinking hell to the NO! I guess it's just one of those things where your perspective is totally different when you're on the other side of it.
Neither of my parents have (yet!) but I told my mom she should do it....three of her sisters are on there and some of my friends mom's are on their too. Soooo many family members, actually. I think its cool!
Both of my parents are on it, and ar my friends. As is my 13 yr old son, a bunch of cousins, siblings, etc. I do not have any "friend lists" or whatever you called it... they are just all my friends. I love having them all on there. It is such an easy and fun way to keep in touch, makes life simple.
My Dad is signed up to see some pictures my sister had on FB but he didn't start a profile. My Mom barely has access to a computer in her life. She's never seen my blog even. I wouldn't care if they were on there though and were my friends. I don't have anything to hide...on FB at least. :)
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