Should I Really Join Facebook?

[Sam Mac]

Should I Really Join Facebook?


A good laugh for people in the over 60 group !!!
When I bought my Blackberry, I thought about the 30-year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a cell phone that plays music, takes videos, pictures and communicates with Facebook and Twitter. I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, my 13 grand kids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it's red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife and everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. I had to take my hearing aid out to use it, and I got a little loud.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside that gadget was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-u-lating." You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then if I made a right turn instead. Well, it was not a good relationship...
When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't figured out how I lose three phones all at once and have to run around digging under chair cushions, checking bathrooms, and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.

The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden "Paper or Plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them with me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or plastic?" I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look. I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered, No, but I do fart a lot."

P.S. I know some of you are not over 70. I sent it to you to allow you to forward it to those who are....... I figured your sense of humor could handle it...If not… find a sense of humor…. We all need to have one of these !!!.
We senior citizens don't need any more gadgets. The TV remote and the garage door remote are about all we can handle.

[J-Mech]

I have all the respect in the world for feeling this way. You don't have to be old. I'm proud to say at 35, I can't stand the way that my younger brothers text all the time. We have a constant group text going so we can all talk, but some days my phone dings constantly. Between getting personal email, work emails, texts and calls, I usually just want to throw the phone in the trash.

Facebook? Yeah, I have an account. I never log on. Drives me nuts. Went to delete it the other day and my girl says "NO! I use your account to creep on people's pages that I can't see!"..... Whatever.

I may not be old, but I didn't have a cell phone until I started a business, and we had rotary dial phones and got 3 channels when I was a kid. We listened to the radio, seldom watched TV, and I didn't have the internet at home until I had a place of my own and a business. We've become to attached to these things, and I don't particularly like it.

I won't get my kids cell phones. We don't have cable or satellite TV, or even an antenna for that matter. We don't have video games, and we don't let the kids play with our phones or get on the internet. (They are all under 10, so what the heck they need on the net for I wouldn't know.) People call us "old fashioned"...... but I don't care. We hang out together, work in the yard, and play board and card games. When it's nice, we kick them outside until dark and they ride bikes and, (oh my God) use their imagination. Kids don't do enough of that stuff anymore.

Here's to being "old fashioned".

[bocephus1991]

I'm 43 grew up much like Jon did, we did watch tv. The usual stuff, Dukes of hazzard, BJ and the bear! Lol and mom watched Dallas. Dad didn't watch a lot. The news and we watched Austin city limits. We had four channels 6,8,13,17. I didn't have internet till 99. Had a bag cell until 03 or 4. I have Facebook it has some interesting groups and all of them have their share of childish people an idiots. I like the tractor groups (IH) some good cub groups too. And there's classified groups too. It's all up to personal preference, need and beliefs. I also like having access to look up stuff that interests me, parts look ups. I like it, technology and the electronic world is growing more everyday! The tractors, trucks and cars I started out driving had no computers! Now they all do. I don't think that's a good thing though. To much electronic crap, too many regulations, too much bs!

[john hall]

Jonathan, you're going to be in for a shock in a year or two when your kids HAVE to have the internet just to do schoolwork. And the majority of the work will be done on their laptop, practically no textbooks any longer. Just giving you a friendly heads up, not that I'm the biggest fan of it myself.

[jubilee]

Well Brian, I grew up back in the dark ages when TV didn't come to our house until I was 10 or 12. And then the dealer brought it out a couple of times on a week or two approval period before my parents bought it. When Columbia's Channel 8 came on the air we used to spend hours watching the test pattern in great anticipation of the cartoons or whatever came next. And, like you guys I very much dislike all the texting my daughter and our friends insist on doing. I also set up a Facebook account several years ago and refuse to do anything unless forced to do so. Twitter and those other things like it have no use in my life either.

[RR1862CC]

The best thing about losing my old job was suddenly my phone quit ringing, beeping, and whatever other noises it made. Now I might go two or three days without a call and I sleep a lot sounder. About the only calls I get are from the guy with my job at the new company wanting advice on something but he has finally quit that.
As was mentioned once they get in about the seventh grade it all changes and once in high school it gets really bad. Almost all the kids homework is online now and living in the sticks without high speed internet gets expensive on heavy test times. It was really bad when my wife was in nursing school because that little usage meter hummed all the time.

[bocephus1991]

And now schools want to stop teaching cursive writing?! Crazy!

[J-Mech]

As of now, I don't have to worry too much about the internet and homework. Our school is pretty conservative and they still use books. Most all homework is just like it always was. Outside of research for papers and such, our school doesn't do the internet thing. By the time my kids get to High school it may change. We'll deal with that when the time comes.

[64fleetside]

Got one in high school and has homework that must be done on the interweb. Crazy, didnt even exist when i was a kid.

[john hall]

Originally Posted by 64fleetside

Got one in high school and has homework that must be done on the interweb. Crazy, didnt even exist when i was a kid.

This started for us in the sixth grade. Schools here provide the laptops, parents get to buy the $100+ calculators. I really don't recall seeing any graded papers since the kid finished 5th grade. Makes it hard to follow what they are doing.