An Unexpected New “Friend”

Monday night seemed like any other. I watched a little TV, did some reading, ate a good meal. The work day after a long three-day weekend is always a little tiring, so I thought I should turn in early. But just before heading to bed, I decided to check my Inbox one last time.

And that’s when I saw it. The email I never IMAGINED would show up there.

My mother had requested to add me as a friend on Facebook.

Having my parent on Facebook is both intriguing and mortifying. Intriguing, because not but two months ago, my mother was quizzing me about Twitter and “all this social networking mumbo-jumbo”—along with swearing to me that she would never join any of it, for it all seemed confusing and unnecessary. Intriguing too, because I think it will be interesting to see how she utilizes the platform (after only a few hours on the site, I noticed she had already connected with some of her old co-workers, extended family members that even I didn’t know were on Facebook, and a mélange of people I imagine are from her childhood).

And of course, it was mortifying in that 5 years worth of pictures—including many from my days as an undergraduate—were readily available for her to see (luckily, I’ve already created a number of Friends Lists, so with a quick click of the button, embarrassment was averted).

The reason I chose to write about my newest Facebook friend is to give some context as to how far the site has come in a very short amount of time. A little over five years ago, when I first joined the site, there were only 11 colleges on the Facebook “network.” And, you had to be a current student at one of those schools in order to join. There was no such thing as a “Wall.” There were no photo uploads, no news feeds, no Fan pages, no groups, no “liking” of statuses (in fact, there were no statuses either).

Back then, Facebook was purely a base-level networking site: you could friend people and send messages to them, but that was the extent of connectability. Mostly, thefacebook.com (as it was known back then) consisted of your profile picture and some informational text you posted about yourself. I can remember when one of the coolest features about the site was that it housed your university’s entire course catalog, so that you could add your classes and discover “friends” who were taking the same courses.

Today, as my mother is finding out, Facebook is unbelievable in its ability to connect people and share information. With Facebook, you can be one of millions of Nutella fans. You can use Facebook Connect to post the latest New York Times cover story directly to your profile, for hundreds of your friends (and family) to see. When your childhood best friend has a child of their own, you’ll know about it—even if you haven’t spoken to that person in 10 years (I can imagine that planning high school reunions is infinitely easier with Facebook!).

More than anything though, I’m excited that this technology—which is truly revolutionizing the way we communicate with one another—is so readily accessible to users of all ages and technical abilities. I can hardly wait to see how my mom and I connect over Facebook. And, after five and a half years since its initial launch, I can hardly wait to see what Facebook comes up with next.