Back in February, I posed this question: "Are grandparents taking over Facebook?" Now we have an answer, based on Facebook's own stats: Yes. There are now more grandparents on Facebook than there are high school students.
If you figure, as most people do, that one reason grandparents join Facebook is to keep up with their grandchildren, this is not great news. I anticipate that teenagers will move to some other social network or networking strategy, hoping to keep oldsters behind the curve. That social network hasn't become apparent yet, although teenagers definitely use their cell phones as major networking tools. On their phones, if they don't send a message or a photo to Grandma and Grandpa, their grandparents won't see it.
Even though I anticipate that Facebook will soon be shunned by my grandchildren, I still love Facebook. I can get my daily fix of Scramble. I keep up with ex-students all over the globe, and I'm always hoping to find my all-time best friend from sixth grade. Shirley, if you're out there, friend me!
I’m hooked on Facebook, and I always encourage every grandparent I know to get an account there. I wrote an article on my blog showing Three steps to get grandparents online where I talk about my older sister’s hesitation to get on Facebook, until her daughter convinced her “that’s where the photos of the grandbabies are!”
You are so right, Grandpa Shayne! Your article was right on the money as well. Of course, the statistic about grandparents outnumbering high school students is a bit of an apples and oranges statement. Students only stay in high school for four years, and once you become a grandparent, you remain one forever, usually for decades. Still, there has been a radical shift in the Facebook demographic, and as a grandparent, I’m loving it!
I’m on Facebook and although my grandson is far too young to be on there, my daughters and THEIR grandma (my mom) are on there but there’s no way for my kids to designate grandma as GRANDMA or vice versa in the “Family Members” section of the profile because FB doesn’t include such designations. If FB is full of grandparents, the FB folks need to get on the ball and allow Grandma, Grandpa and the grandkids to include one another in the “Family Members” section of one’s profile.
Maybe there needs to be a “cause” page filled with petitions from all us grandparents so FB will see the need for such a thing.
There’s my rant for the day.
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