Catching up on Facebook--> lessons learned

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Recently I have been in touch with childhood and high school friends on Facebook. I have heard about their lives, successes, struggles, seen pictures of their kids and learned where they ended up.</p>

<p>Guess what? Not one person has asked me where I went to college. I haven’t even thought to ask them where they went.</p>

<p>But I will say that it is so interesting to see how these people ended up. One is a vintner in Napa and is starting his own wine brand, one writes for television, one plays cello in a world famous orchestra, one coaches volleyball at a big time school, one started a small chain of upscale coffee houses, one wrote a cookbook–> everyone is pretty interesting in their own way.</p>

<p>Can you guess which ones went to Ivies (hint, one went to Harvard, one to Columbia)</p>

<p>Lesson learned: While you can’t underplay how important this life step is NOW, I think we all know that our children will end up okay whether or not they go to an Ivy or even the college of their choice.</p>

2

<p>Not necessarily. Just because in a social situation you’re not asked where you went to college doesn’t mean that it didn’t shape the person you became.</p>

<p>Did your friends all go to the college of their choice? You don’t know if they would have been equally successful if they didn’t. You don’t know if they would have been differently successful if they had gone somewhere other than where they went. Perhaps being forced to go to a college that they didn’t like would have colored their future world view and future plans, so that they didn’t become as successful or indeed successful at all.</p>

<p>You have no basis for your underlying assumptions. (And you never had to ask where they went to school, since you obviously already knew!)</p>

<p>Correlation does not imply causation. Lack of correlation does not imply lack of causation.</p>

3

<p>Sheesh, no one was making any “assumptions”, the OP was making a point of saying that you can be happy with your life no matter where you go to college, or even if you don’t go to college. That is a very intelligent statement, Jamie, and one that the obsessors on this forum especially need to hear.</p>

4

<p>I hope you want all Lessons learned from Facebook usage. Here’s mine- One has to feel OK deleting “friends” that begin adding too much stress in your life.</p>

<p>When I first started facebooking, I only had friends from my age group. As I got more comfortable with FB, I began adding the younger generation; my SIL’s DDs, my BIL’s DS an DD, friend’s DD etc. SIL is in India and her DD is in Boston. Initially it was nice to check out what my SIL’s DD was up to day to day via ‘status updates’. However, she turned out to be quite ‘attention grabber’ by her status updates.</p>

<p>Her updates would go ‘I am so miserable’ or ‘Why are people so unreasonable?’ ‘I am sick as a dog’ each one prompting me to call her to find out if everything was OK. When I would call her, she would invariably brush it off saying that it was really no big deal, the reality was much milder than her status updates led them to be, and that I should not take her status updates seriously at all.</p>

<p>Each time I read those status updates, I felt obligated to check with her… each time, it turned out to be an exaggerated status update, and no big deal at all. While on my side, I and DH had worried and stressed about it until I had been able to reach her.</p>

<p>Yesterday was the last straw. I finally deleted her from my ‘friends’ list. I don’t want to add any more ‘false alarms’ to my life and thereby add stress.</p>

<p>So, lessons learned - One needs to be careful in adding younger folk as friends in your list/ feel free to delete those who escalate stress level in your lives via the internet.</p>

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<p>With young people (my kids more specific), if they don’t call me to complain, I don’t look for it. I figure if they are truly miserable they’ll let me know, otherwise that’s what their friends are for.</p>

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<p>For the two I knew about (the two Ivies) I knew because I heard about it when they went. Not because they have mentioned it, listed it in the facebook profile or anything like that.</p>

<p>In fact, you are right Chedva, I could never know if they would be more or less happy going to other schools. No one does. You could go insane second guessing every step you took. My point is that taking what you have and making the best of it, being POSITIVE about your choices and not obsessing about status and prestige usually makes for a happier life.</p>

<p>Ivies, or state schools or community college isn’t what made all these people happy and successful. They made themselves happy and successful.</p>

<p>FWIW: the two ivy kids are the television writer and the cookbook writer.</p>

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<p>My 35th high school reunion is this summer. I don’t use Facebook, but did get an invitation to a reunion get-together out of the blue through a site called classmates.com. What has shocked me as I go through and read the “stories” of the people who have written them (not too many), is how many didn’t go to college AT ALL or went a year or two and dropped out!! I left high school, headed on to college and never thought about it!! I don’t know if it is my age or the fact that I moved away from the area 28 years ago, but I look at the list of names of people in the class and say to myself, “Who are these people?!?!” Even looking them up in the yearbook doesn’t help much!!</p>

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<p>Doesn’t your facebook profile say where you went to college? Mine does and I tend to look at the educational listings of my facebook “friends” just because I’m interested and there might be some common ground.
I agree that where you went to college does not necessarily determine your happiness or success in life, but it is a fact about a person that interests me.</p>

9

<p>Midwest: I laughed out loud at your post! When I think about all the angst and the time I wasted wondering what people thought about me in high school and now realize that half of them (or more!) don’t remember me at all!! </p>

<p>How free we could all be in highschool if we understood that most kids won’t remember us, and that we can go on and live our lives without worrying about critical scrutiny.</p>

<p>Of course, I guess we could all do it better given a second chance! That’s why there are so many movies and television shows on the theme.</p>

10

<p>MomofWildChild</p>

<p>Mine isn’t listed but some people might be. I don’t look. In fact, I can’t think of a single person that I have noticed where they went to college. That’s not to say it wouldn’t be interesting to know because it might be something to ask about.</p>

<p>But whether or not it was a prestige school or Podunk U. wouldn’t nake much difference to me now. In fact, probably no difference except that if my son was interested in a particular school I could get their insight.</p>

<p>But I am interested in how one woman went to the Andes mountains, fell in love with llamas or alpacas and now raises them and treks with them. That’s cool.</p>

11

<p>On Facebook, you can join the network of your college. I believe you have to have a college e-mail in order to do that, but not sure. Lots of my friends are in Princeton network or NYU network, etc.</p>

<p>Also, if someone is posting too often or too distressingly for your taste, you don’t have to defriend that person. You can also hide them. That way you can still check up on them if you feel like, but you don’t have to be privy to their various aches and pains.</p>

<p>To hide someone, go to one of their posts on your newsfeed, and mouse over the blank area to the right of it. A Hide button will pop up. Very convenient. I have hidden several friends who were on the go seemingly 24/7 and posting from their mobiles. It was too exhausting for me to even keep up!</p>

<p>Also, if you are sick of seeing all those quiz results, you can also hide those by the same method. When the Hide button pops up, you will have an option to hide the friend or hide just that particular quiz. I’ve been clicking that button a lot lately!</p>

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<p>Well your former classmates probably won’t be interviewing you for jobs either necessarily.</p>

13

<p>

I have no idea what the hell this whole paragraph means</p>

14

<p>It is perfectly clear to me.:slight_smile: </p>

<p>SIL - sister in law
DD - darling daughter
BIL - brother in law
DS - darling son</p>

<p>I have been on CC too long.</p>

15

<p>I’m debating adding some younger folks (19, 22 years old) that I worked w/recently & with whom it would be nice to keep in touch (project ended, so not working there any more).</p>

<p>But, like Pharmgal, I’m not sure if I want to know all the details of a younger person’s life (drinking events, etc.!). But, it’s such a great way to keep in touch, it’s tempting…</p>

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<p>Jolynne, my rule with FB is that I don’t ask people significantly younger than me to be my friends; however if they initiate and ask me I will say yes. Leads to some eyeopening moments :)</p>

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<p>I’d like to avoid eyeopening moments, generally. :slight_smile: It’s just that I’d been helping some of these girls w/law school apps/undergrad advice and thought I might be able to continue to assist them in some way. Maybe not a good idea, though, all things considered. lol.</p>

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<p>

If you want, you can ask that you receive less information about these people. You don’t have to delete them completely.</p>

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<p>Haven’t read everything on this thread, but when reconnecting with high school friends, I always check out where they went to school, as well as what are they doing currently. And surprising…the ones that stayed home for school, seem to do as well as those that went to larger, more well known schools.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the “hide” tips, lurknessmonster!! Although I’ve been on FB for a long time, since the days when you <em>had</em> to have an email address that ended in .edu, I hadn’t spent much time on facebook until the adults started to join (which the kids then hated!). I appreciate the opportunity to cut down on some of the multiple posts that are not of interest to me.</p>

<p>As for the topic at hand, I think FB has been a great way to catch up with old friends – and what we tend to “talk” about are things that are currently relevant. What they are doing now, a quick catch-up on their lives (work, family, kids, marriages, divorces, whatever) is what tends to be the topic. I really can’t imagine bringing up where I went to college/grad school (though like MOWC, my info is in some section of FB because I had to include it to get the account when I joined). That said, I don’t find myself going searching for where HS friends went to college or grad school. What is interesting, and may come up, is how old their kids are, and if their kids are in college, we might discuss where our kids are in school, what they are doing, etc, as this is currently relevant, and areas of shared interest.</p>

<p>I did join my college alum group on FB,and have reconnected with many college friends this way. If they went on to grad/professional school, no, we didnt talk about where they went, because they aren’t currently in school. If they were currently in school, we might talk about it as it is currently relevant. Instead, we share current parallels-- caring for aging parents, job stress, kids, kids jobs, marriages, etc. I kinda compare it to threads on CC. They slowly move to page, 2,3,4, etc… as new topics of discussion emerge. Where we went to school is probably on the equivalent of pg 22 on CC. Its like yesterdays news to us and our contemporaries. Much more current stuff to talk about.</p>