I’ve been an avid user of the social networking Web site Facebook since the end of my senior year in high school, but I never thought I would be Facebook friends with my own mother.
It’s an interesting transition filtering my facebook and changing privacy settings for the eventual and hopeful succession into professional representation of myself. News reports have recently stated that as many as 45 percent of employers scope out applicants on facebook before continuing interview procedures. I’m active in moving information and photos to appropriate aspects of my social networking persona. My new twitter displays no material that may be viewed as offensive or less than exemplary for this very reason. I wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong impression of me.
But, facebook reports that there are more than 250 million active users and the fastest growing demographic is people 35 years of age and older.
My mother is 35 years of age or older and now she has a facebook. Her justification to me was that she wanted to stay in touch with her friends. My mother’s friends are on facebook too?! Regardless, I am confident her justification to herself was likely something relating to wanting to keep tabs on two of her sons, one of whom(not me) is in Spain for a semester abroad.
The idea of blocking certain content, like my facbook status, from my mother feels like I am keeping a secret from her. She probably doesn’t need to know that I am watching “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” at 2 a.m. when I should be sleeping or studying or doing anything else.
But it’s possible that my mother is helping me indirectly to prepare for my future. With 45 percent of employers scoping out their applicants on facebook before continuing the interview process, it’s important to put your best digital footprint forward. Suddenly, Mom has helped me do more then wipe the schmutz from my face. She has helped me to wipe the schmutz from my facebook. Those pictures of my friends and I in our inappropriate Halloween costumes have vanished and I am the up and coming professional that all of the bosses want to hire.
My mother might actually be the reason I get a job in the future. She may be a bit too intrusive and she might continue to ask me why I don’t have a girlfriend, (not that she doesn’t do that already anyway), but she might have prompted me to reevaluate what content my friends and I decide is web post worthy.
She is my mother and she is my facebook friend, but she might just be an excellent career adviser too.