My Grandma is on Facebook

The first time I heard about Facebook, I was backstage at a dance recital changing costumes.  At the time, MySpace was still the major social media site, and I hadn’t even begun to enter into that world.

By the time I got my own Facebook account, it was towards the end of my senior year of high school.  I had wanted one for a long time, but my parents hadn’t wanted me to get one.  Most of my friends had joined by the time I did, although the site’s users were still primarily high school and college kids. 

When I went off to college in the fall, family members quickly signed on in an attempt to stay in touch with me not that I was living out-of-state.  Aunts, uncles, some cousins, and of course, Mom and Dad all became part of the Facebook world.  And last but not least, my Grandma signed up.

While many people would have instantly been repulsed at the idea of accepting the friend requests that followed, it didn’t bother me one bit.  What better way to show family and friends pictures of my new dorm room and show them how well I was doing at school?  Especially those people who are unable to visit me at school?  To a new college student living away from home for the first time, Facebook was a gift.  And don’t think I didn’t get a kick out of showing people my 60-something-year-old Grandmother’s perky profile picture and wall posts.

Although the many advantages of Facebook were prominent in the first few weeks of being away, after awhile I was left with a problem.  How much can I actually post online?  How much do I really want my family to see?  Giving my family access to something that many view as a ‘friends-only zone’ means giving them access to personal conversations, pictures, and much more.  So did I make a huge mistake in letting them into that part of my life?  After all, I am entitled to some privacy.  I am an adult, even though they are my family.

In the end, it comes down to one simple thing.  The internet is forever.  What you post online is out there forever.  Sure you can delete pictures off of your wall, or delete a post from a blog, but people can copy pictures and save them onto their own hard drives.  Once something is out there, you have given someone an opportunity to use it against you.  The only way to defend yourself against this is to simply watch what you post.  Don’t put up pictures of you using drugs if you’re not prepared to face the consequences.  What goes online has the potential to harm your reputation, your career, and the rest of your life. 

I realized that if I wasn’t comfortable with allowing my family to see something I’ve posted on Facebook, then I shouldn’t be posting it online at all, and more importantly, perhaps I shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.