How Not to Act Old on Facebook

3. NOT TOO BUSINESS, NOT TOO CASUAL. It’s all too easy to err one way or another on Facebook, using it primarily to promote your professional ventures or letting your digital hair down – crazy party pictures! – the way the kids do. But both these tacks are wrong. Even if you use your Facebook account mainly for business, you need to leaven the self-promotion with personal details, quirky observations, a bit of revelation.

And if your Facebook friends are mostly your actual friends, you still need to remember that in the future anyone from your would-be boss to your long-lost nephew may be Facebook stalking you.  And speaking of that….

4. DON’T BE A FACEBOOK STALKER.  Yes, you can be friends with someone you don’t really know. But you can’t use that as an excuse to try and Chat with them whenever you see they’re online, invite them to quiz themselves on which Jane Austen character they are, or comment on everything they say and do. That’s not just old, that’s creepy.

5. DEFRIEND YOUR KIDS. Kids refuse to friend you? Well, defriend them right back, even if only theoretically. But seriously, if your grownup kids don’t want a Facebook relationship with you, don’t try to circumvent that by friending their friends, tagging them in pictures, sending them private Facebook messages instead of emails.  Some things are sacred, and, between the generations, Facebook may be one of them.

More from Pam Satran: How Not to Act Old With Emoticons

Along with this exclusive column for MORE.com, Satran offers additional up-to-the-minute tips at hownottoactold.com.