OMG! Dad's on Facebook

The bad news is my high school niece won't accept me as a Facebook friend. No big surprise there.

The good news is that my daughter and son have accepted me into their Facebook universe.

That I'm wandering around Facebook represents an interesting trend -- Baby Boomers, especially those between 55 and 59, account for the largest growing segment of Facebook users in the United States. According to research, in the last 12 weeks there's been a 73 percent increase in the use of Facebook by people 55 to 59 years old.

And it's not just socializing that's occurring on the social network site, it's professional networking as well.

My online attention span is being divided in too many ways these days. In addition to Facebook, I have accounts at Twitter, Digg, Reddit, two on YouTube, LinkedIn, AARP and Eons. And there are probably others that I lost track of.

I'm finding it difficult to get to all the places where, because I've signed up, I feel obligated to socialize or network or otherwise offer my two cents.

Part of why I do it is social. Being a stay-at-home writer these days means I spend a lot of time at home on the computer. And part of why I do it is professional as I try to make myself seen and heard in a vast universe of online content. It's all a matter of visibility in a place where you can easily be invisible.

It's interesting to me -- this graying of Facebook, as it's being called -- because the site started as an online yearbook of sorts for college kids to see who was who on campus.

Parents weren't allowed. And I suspect some parents still aren't allowed, and there's probably some resentment that parents are allowed at all.

I picked up a recent copy of The New Hampshire (the Unviersity of New Hampshire student newspaper) and there was a story on the subject of potential employers finding ways to check out the Facebook posts of job candidates.Not all posting are private. The advice was pretty sound: Don't post anything that makes you look like a risky or bad hire.

But there was another story with the headline: "Parents on Facebook: To friend or not to friend?"

My children Elizabeth, who just finished grad school, and David, who is finishing up at Boston College, were okay with friending me. It's a trust thing. I won't embarrass them; they won't embarrass me. We talk by cellphone and write emails and exchange texts, but their Facebook postings give me a chance to know a bit of how they're getting along without being intrusive. And they know what they post can have a wide audience.

This idea of friending parents is abhorrent to some their age. As one senior told The New Hampshire: "I think adults on Facebook is like having chaperones at a party. Not wanted."

Yikes, I bet her Mom and Dad would die if they saw his Facebook page. Better yet, what would a potential employer think?