Women over 35 are the fastest growing demographic on Facebook – which means you’re probably either a new FBer or thinking you need to sign on.
Humorist Pamela Redmond Satran's new book, How Not to Act Old, is available at a special discount for More readers.
We’ve come a long way since a year ago, when my friend Liscio suggested a better title for How Not to Act Old might be I Hope They Have Facebook In Hell.
After months – make that years – of telling my kids I just didn’t understand Facebook, I finally fell. And yes, now I love it.
The only real problem with Facebook is that it’s all too easy to act even older and more out of it after we start using it than we did when we were still holding out. While I have some tips in the How Not To Act Old book, here are some further instructions on how not to Facebook old:
1. DON’T SCREW UP THE PICTURE. The first thing that tends to send us into a panic about getting on Facebook is, well, the face part. We may, of course, be technologically challenged and find it impossible to figure out how to upload a picture, to which I’d say: It’s all about where you save it in the first place. And if that makes absolutely no sense to you, ask the nearest 14-year-old boy to walk you through the process.
If you DO know how to upload a picture but you’re just paralyzed because you don’t want to look old on Facebook, here are a few tips. Do NOT use your professional headshot, the one the company paid to have taken back in ’02 that features you stiff and smiling against no-seam. Way too formal. Do NOT substitute pictures of your kids or, even worse, you as a kid. And please, I don’t want to friend your cat.
Ironic pictures of toy robots or Glinda the Good Witch are permissible, but best is a simple, pretty, flattering, relaxed picture of you taken by someone who really loves you – like yourself. Instant facelift: Hold the camera over your head and look up when you shoot.
2. DON’T REALLY TELL US WHAT YOU’RE DOING. As on Twitter, too-literal status updates – Heading to the gym! Chicken for dinner again! – are not only old, they’re boring. The young thing is to eschew status updates altogether, but that seems too extreme. Better: Short, provocative, personal, without over-sharing. The kind of thing you’d say at a cocktail party, before the third Mojito.
