<p>I guess you all know about Facebook by now, and how addicting it can be for the Class of 2009. But did you know that parents can also join Facebook?</p>
<p>If you have an alumni “edu” address— and most colleges offer alumni a permanent “edu” address-- you can join Facebook.</p>
<p>You can view only the members who attend(ed) your alma mater…or you can change the setting to your hometown.</p>
<p>S was surprised to have an e-mail saying that his mom wanted to be his friend. (It’s a good thing he agreed!) I also left a note on his wall.</p>
<p>Once you’ve befriended someone, you can look at their friends also, and ask if they’d like to befriend you (if you know them).</p>
<p>My son got a blast out of the blue on Facebook a few weeks ago: a girl he’d known in NY before we moved to CA 10 years ago. He wasn’t even particularly good friends with her, she was just in some of his classes in 4th grade. How the heck she ever thought to look for him and seek him out is beyond both of us.</p>
<p>I think if I joined facebook my kids would disown me. Facebook is like their own secret world without parents. It’s bad enough that I IM them from my office on the main level of the house to their bedrooms upstairs!</p>
<p>Actually, my kids have let me peek at their walls and have tried to show me how the facebook works. I think I will just stick with letting them have their private fun.</p>
<p>Yeah, facebook isn’t really much fun unless you’re a student. I joined to see what it was all about so I could talk more intelligently during alumni interviews but I never go back there to look around. I’m sure most students check there as often as I check CC. ;)</p>
<p>mootmom: I did something similar to friends I had in Texas about 8 years ago. Why did I contact them? Well, because they’d been good friends and I hadn’t kept in touch and I wanted to know (for myself) if they had remembered me and how they were doing.</p>
<p>It amuses me that even back in 5th grade I was friends with kids who ended up at top schools. </p>
<p>To be on-topic, I have yet to run across an adult on Facebook. I think this may be a good thing, though; it’s a student’s thing, really, what with the groups they have and the kind of advertising there is. It’s not <em>meant</em> for alumni, but it’s available to them (you?).</p>
<p>Mootmom, maybe this girl had a crush on your son. Or else she has always remembered him as “the boy who moved to California.” I could picture that being a big deal, especially if she has lived in the same place.</p>
<p>I would never dream of asking to see facebook- there are some things I just don’t wanna know</p>
<p>Re blast from the past- I admit that sometimes when I was really bored and procrastinating I have plugged all kinds of names that I can remember into google to see who else has same name or what they have been doing- who didn’t really matter- but just like genealogy, some names I had more luck with than others- im not a stalker really :)</p>
<p>I used my alumni email address to join Facebook so that I could see what the fuss was about, but my daughter was annoyed about it, so I unsubscribed. (Good thing I never tried to “friend” her). I think I’m too old for this anyway; I never really did understand the appeal.</p>
<p>Interesting. My son invited me to befriend him. Is this a girl/boy difference? Anyone with a daughter who didn’t faint at the thought of her parent having a Facebook account, or a son who did go ballistic at the thought?</p>
<p>After seeing this discussion, I went there yesterday for the first time in over a month, so clearly I’m not very active. Which is as it should be. (PS: I also found that someone named “Oprah Winfrey” offered to befriend me. I think it’s a joke.)</p>
<p>I am convinced that I am the oldest person on the facebook. I had only one semester left when I signed up so now that I am an alumnus, I usually just type in names of guard buddies or cousins and see if they are on also. Its funny to read some of the group names. There was a story in the Kent Stater about residence hall directors using the facebook to bust underage drinkers who joined groups about underage drinking. Technology is wonderful.</p>
<p>Ha ha. S told his friends I’d joined and one of them sent me an invitation to befriend him!</p>
<p>When S told my D I’d joined, she registered her own account. She’s a junior but as she says, she goes to a “hippie” school and never did it before.</p>
(PS: I also found that someone named “Oprah Winfrey” offered to befriend me. I think it’s a joke.)</p>
I had only one semester left when I signed up so now that I am an alumnus, I usually just type in names of guard buddies or cousins and see if they are on also. Its funny to read some of the group names. There was a story in the Kent Stater about residence hall directors using the facebook to bust underage drinkers who joined groups about underage drinking. Technology is wonderful.</p>