Facebook has come a long way since its inception. Way back when, thefacebook was meant to be an online student directory. My daughter was a member, but I couldn’t join. It was okay, though, I had myspace.

(Did that make you chuckle? Poor myspace.)

Twelve years later, we’re ALL Generation FB.

How many times a day do you check?
How many times during conversation do you begin a sentence with, “I saw (that) on Facebook.”
How often have you been elsewhere online and wished you could “like” something?
There’s no denying, we are Facebook conditioned.

I’m on, my kids are on, my friends are on, my family is on… people I haven’t seen in person in twenty, thirty, even forty years, are on– and it’s like we just saw each other yesterday. Because we did– on Facebook.

Our kids and grandkids and great grandkids are growing up on Facebook. Our kids and grandkids and great grandkids are growing up with Facebook. Sure, at some point Facebook will go the way of myspace, but it will be replaced with something else. These kids will never know a time BEFORE social networking.

We post our lunch updates, funny and frustrating experiences, and vacation pics.
We share our favorite recipes, posts we know our friends would enjoy, and memes that make us LOL.
We hide advertisements, offensive images, and opinions we don’t agree with.
We use it for promoting our interests, our work, and ourselves.

But mostly we spend time together.

Recently I was able to attend an Indian Wedding festivity– one of many throughout the week. It was an amazing affair! Bright and loud and high-energy. I could only make it to the garba, but through sharing on Facebook, I admired the mehndi, saw the parade, enjoyed the decorations, and watched the wedding, the reception, the dancing! All of the videos on my Facebook stream made me wish I could’ve attended more of the celebration (and if you know anything about me and weddings, that’s saying a LOT). At one point, a mutual friend said that she loved having her stream filled with wedding updates. I definitely “liked” that post.

Say what you will about the detriments of Facebook (that’s a blog for another day), it can bring us closer. Allow us to experience things together that without FB we would have totally missed. Or at least had to wait for the photo processing and potluck in the basement with the slide show/home videos. Am I dating myself?

Old, older, young, younger, we’re in this together.
It’s what we make it. Let’s make it awesome.
Welcome to Generation FB.