Grandparents Are on Facebook, Too

Simon actually has three grandparents on Facebook. And he admits that having
them there has changed his online behavior.

"When you do status updates - sometime I forget that they're on - I have to
look at it a different way," he said.

Not everyone is thrilled with the Baby Boomers' discovery of such sites. Some
young people have responded by searching out new ways to stay a step ahead of
grandma, moving from Facebook to Twitter, for example.

"I think that these developments might be the death of Facebook," said
Simon's friend, Charlie Pabst.

Social networking sites are still predominantly used by a younger population.
The median ages of MySpace and Facebook users were 26 and 27 years old,
respectively. At the career-focused LinkedIn, it was 40, according to a recent
report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

But there may be no escaping the onslaught from older relatives. Bundesen
also uses Twitter to update her status. "I'm adapting to their lifestyle," she
explained.

Like some younger users, my grandfather initially joined looking to connect
to old classmates - in his case, any that were still alive.

He wasn't so successful there. But soon, he found that he could use it to
stay in touch with grandchildren near and far.

I spent a fair amount of time around my grandfather growing up in Colorado.
But truthfully, I never really knew him - his personality, his war stories, the
story of how he and my grandmother met.

After my grandmother passed away last year, my grandfather found himself
alone for the first time in 65 years. He was looking for ways to occupy his
time.

So this summer, about six months after becoming a widower, 88-year-old Howard
Hilt of Pueblo, Colo., joined Facebook and got to know his granddaughter in New
Jersey. For better or worse.

When I posted a status update about running my first mile since recovering
from ankle surgery, he wrote on my page: "That's the way to go Tiger!"

He also comments on pictures.

"I sure look my age in this one, and not too good in the others either," he
said of one recent picture my cousin posted. "Candid shots are too stark for me,
I think."

When I sent him a list of 25 random things about me, he returned the favor
with a list of "Notes about me, Grandpa Hilt."

They were very different lists, to be sure.

He learned that I once met Magic Johnson and that that I don't prepare food
using fire.

I learned that he used to make spare money as a kid by watering graveyard
grass in Brooklyn; he flew B-24 bombers in WWII; and he worked for Anastasio
Somoza Garcia, Dictator of Nicaragua, as a controller in his steamship agency's
New York office.

"While in Managua on a business trip (my wife accompanied me), we became
embroiled in an insurrection by communists and had a ducky time of it," he
wrote.

But his No. 2 random thing was my favorite. It read: "Met my future wife in
kindergarten."

Before that, I had no idea how or when my grandparents met.

And despite my initial concerns, he assures me that he hasn't been shocked by
what he's seen.

The reason is simple: "At my age, nothing shocks me!"