It’s happened.  My dad’s discovered Facebook.  He has a profile picture and everything.  He even yearbooked himself.

In early July I heard a story on NPR that posed the question: “Can you be friends with your mom on Facebook?”  When I heard that story on the radio I laughed, but I immediately started the debate in my head: if one of my parents joined Facebook would I befriend them?  I thought, I’m 27 years old and I have nothing to hide from my parents so yes, I would add my parents as Facebook friends if they ever joined.  Less than a month later my sister sent me a friend suggestion for my father.

There’s a website devoted to children whose parents have joined Facebook.

I only reviewed the site for a moment, but it seemed to be comprised of screenshots of status updates and comments from kids poking fun at their parents for taking quizzes or leaving flirtatious messages on their spouse’s wall.  It was less of a support group for kids whose doting parents had joined Facebook to check up on them while they are away at college and more of a place to vent about the moral frustrations of not being able to deny their mom or dad’s friend request.

Over the course of the last three months my dad has joined Twitter and Facebook and most recently joined the ranks of the iPhone elite.  He currently has two apps on his iPhone, one of them is Twitterific.

I asked my dad why he Tweets and why he finally decided to join Facebook.  To understand his answer, I should probably preface it with a little background on my father.  He’s the Associate Director of Facilities for Maintenance at St. Bonaventure University.  Most recently he participated in a campus-wide safety drill.

“I wasn’t real interested in Facebook until this spring when we had our emergency preparedness drill. I ended up in the middle of the response command center (they actually moved inside and took over my building). (My boss) was at the operations command center across campus.”

In the fall of 2008, St. Bonaventure ran an emergency preparedness drill to ensure the safety of students, staff, and faculty members in case of a campus-wide emergency in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings and other college campus emergencies.

“Throughout years of emergency preparedness I have had a strong opinion that communicating in this current era and with this generation required some non-traditional concepts. That was my first reaction after Virginia Tech. At SBU they would have sent an emergency notice board on the e-mail system. I thought, WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE PEOPLE POTENTAILLY AFFECTED AT SBU WOULD GET THAT MESSEAGE?  We have since done some things differently. On drill day, (a staff member) was able to produce a photo from Facebook and forward it to my PC for law enforcement officials to view.  We were making things up as we went along and were at that point forced to think ‘outside the box,’ thus, my interest in Facebook.”

My sister and I both have iPhones, and since our father told us that he was thinking about getting a new phone last fall we’ve been pushing him toward getting an iPhone as well.  The emergency preparedness helped solidify his decision.

“That is also why I wanted a smart phone- and particularly an iPhone, to have access to all of these communication vehicles from anywhere.”

I’ll take credit for his Twitterdom though.  I was the first person who I knew to adopt Twitter (I’m not bragging, it just wasn’t in my friends’ vocabulary until I talked them into joining).

“Twitter is more of a curiosity. But I want to be familiar- again if I want to use it or if it ever became an emergency communication pathway. Nobody is going to follow me, and I don’t have much to say until I have followers. I just have random thoughts that I like to express. And I like to have my finger on the pulse even though I am old.”

The truth is I didn’t cringe when my father joined Facebook, I smiled.  He actually uses technology for something useful/work related, where as I am seeking only to reap the social rewards.  Using Facebook for work hasn’t stopped him from having fun with it though.  He’s uploaded vacation pictures and a photo of his enormous cat.   Who knows maybe he’ll even talk my mom into joining?

Don’t be discouraged next time you hear someone talking about Facebook or Twitter.  When you have a few minutes do some research for yourself and find out which social network is right for you to join.  If my dad can do it, so can you.  Just remember, you’re never too old to Tweet.

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